Remnant's Reckoning
by RoboStinger206
Summary: (AU) 4 brothers, separated at birth, are joined once again as Titans. A rank that is given to one very powerful selected huntsman/huntress from each of the 4 Kingdoms. Though these brothers are rejoined, they have their own vendettas in which could shape the future of all of Remnant. Through friends and family the brothers must learn to let these vendettas go and be free once again
1. Chapter 1

**CH1: The Elementist and The Titanist:**

"Ritsu would you stop showing off!" Kluá exclaims, before pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes momentarily.

"God this is ridiculous," Kluá mutters quietly.

* * *

Reopening his eyes, Kluá frowns at his twin brother who still continues to show off his muscular arms to the twins, Melanie and Miltia Malachite.

 _I swear,_ Kluá takes a sip of his strawberry sunrise drink, _he does this every time we come to Junior's club._

With the twins currently preoccupied with Ritsu's large, and extremely solid, biceps, the "gun show," he calls it, the strong boy turns his head far enough towards his brother's direction, only to catch him in his peripheral.

"Come on, bro!" Ritsu shouts, "The ladies love it!"

At that, Ritsu—who has a peachy complexion; long black hair, and wears a black and blood-red headband; a tribal hawk top that covers only the arms, back, and shoulders, revealing the strong boy's black thick-lined tattoos on his torso; gauntlets and greaves, and—lifts the giggling Malachite twins up in the air, making them sit on his biceps as if they were a chair and walked off, down the boardwalk, and stairs, onto the dance floor.

* * *

Again Kluá takes a sip of his strawberry sunrise, only to make that annoying suction sound when people have empty drinks with a straw.

 _Looks like I'm gonna need another,_ Kluá thought.

Slowly, the young boy took his empty cup and stood from his chair followed the same path his brother took, except he made a beeline to the bar, where Hei Xiong aka "Junior" sits, perched on a bar stool.

"Yo, Junior!"

Junior slowly turns his head to the left to see Kluá leaning against the counter, gesturing his empty glass.

"Another one?"

"Yup!" Kluá smirks a grin.

Junior sighs and gestures one of his henchman to make Kluá another of his favorite drinks using the boy's used cup.

"Isn't this your second one?" Junior asks, looking a little perplexed.

"Naw, it's my third now."

"Any more of these, and you're gonna get sick kid."

"That just sounds ridiculous" A smile creeps up on the boy's face while he sips his straw, "my semblance won't allow it."

"Alright, whatever you say kid." The club owner waves a hand, "It's all on you."

At that, Junior turns away from the boy, indicating that the small talk was over.

 _Sheesh!_ Kluá takes a sip of his new batch of strawberry sunrise, _I think it's time for Ritsu and me to find him a lady friend._

* * *

With one more sip, Kluá gets up off the bar stool, leaving his drink, and heads off into the direction of the restrooms—which are a little on the left-side of the main entrance, below the stairs—which happens to be in the same direction where Ritsu and the twins are.

The boy only took a quick glance at his brother who seems to be occupied with dancing with Miltia, while Melanie tugs on the strong boy's—past shoulder-length—long hair. Speaking of which, the boy takes his same-length—and colored—hair and ties it in a low ponytail.

Little did Kluá know, while he was occupied with tying his hair, he did not see the sexiest girl crossing his path. But when the boy did finally notice her, his composer faltered a little when she winked at him.

Looking back, the boy caught a glimpse of what she looked like and what she was wearing.

The mystery girl has a peachy complexion, with wavy blonde hair, and light-dull purple eyes. As for her fashion, she wears a tan vest with gold piping over a yellow, low-cut crop top with a black crest that resembles a burning heart. The vest has puffy cap sleeves with black cuffs and gold buttons. She also wore a brown belt with a buckle, a pouch, and a small fighter's sash-like flag that is connected to a white asymmetrical back skirt under the belt. She also wears black short-shorts under her belt. Aside from an orange infinity scarf around her neck, she has no discernible jewelry; she wears brown, knee-high leather boots with orange socks of different lengths; her left leg also has a gray bandana wrapped around her kneecap; and to top it off she wears fingerless black gloves under gold bracelets.

* * *

Kluá shakes his head. _I gotta stop drinking these strawberry sunrises at night._

After taking care of his personal business, Kluá strolls on over to the sink to wash his hands and face.

Once he was done wiping his face, the boy took one good look at himself, from the bottom-up; checking his black and dark green metal boots for scuff marks; then his black pants for stains, as well as his long-black shaolin sash tied around his waist; his tight black t-shirt; his tight dark green sleeveless thigh-length vest, and his dark brown steel gauntlets.

"'never thought I'd look good in green." Klua says out-loud himself

At that, Kluá cups his hands to gather water from the faucet, only to notice the water shake here-and-there, which was always followed by a low rumbling sound.

 _What the-._ Kluá's inner thought was interrupted by another rumbling sound.

Quickly, the green-clothed boy wiped his hands clean and took off out the restroom only to see the most unbelievable mayhem he has ever witnessed, ever since he came across the seas to the kingdom of Vale from Mistral.

"HOLY-" Kluá starts, "RITSU WHAT DID YOU DO!"

The green-clothed boy quickly looks around for his muscular brother, ignoring the fact that there are explosion and flying henchmen everywhere. But then his eyes wondered towards the center of the dance floor where he saw that blonde girl from earlier, once again.

Except, this time, Kluá gawks as Blondie clears the dance floor by beating up all of Junior's men, with vigorous punches and kicks, which seem to be supported by her explosive weapons.

 _Damn! She can do all that with a pair of gauntlets!_

As Kluá couldn't stop watching Blondie rain hell in the nightclub, Ritsu—his twin brother—randomly pops up beside him.

"Ohhh…what a women…"

Surprised, the green-clothed boy quickly turns to his brother, with a strange look.

"Where the hell you've been, and…" Kluá raises his voice in frustration, "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO!"

Ritsu slowly recollects his composure rubbing the ear that his twin brother shouted in.

"Relax, I didn't do anything," the muscular boy shrugs, "this time."

"Then wh-"

"It was that sexy blonde chick."

Kluá pinches the bridge of his nose. "Exactly how did you make this happen?"

"What makes you think I did this?" The muscular twin-brother crosses his arms.

"Because ever since, we found you in Vacuo," Kluá frowns, "we'd have to clean up your mess."

Ritsu snorts. "F-Y-I little bro," the strong boy holds up a finger to his green-clothed brother. "Junior said something Blondie didn't like, so now she's P-M-S-ing."

The green-clothed brother shakes his head. "A girl is always P-M-S-ing with you around."

"Ha!" Ritsu grins at Kluá, "You know it bro."

Kluá face palms himself. Yet regardless, he couldn't help but fist bump his brother for saying that.

Just as the boy-twins were about to go back to watching the mayhem, a couple of "fire balls" flew in their direction impacting the walls and floor near them, though they were unfazed because they have been in situations far worse than this. Then a little while later a flying Miltia crashes right into the glass display pillar next to them.

Kluá ducks and covers himself momentarily, but Ritsu only brushes bits and pieces of glass off his shoulder.

Ritsu peaks over the other side of Kluá to see Miltia lying unconscious on the floor.

"Well" the strong twin-brother brushes his hands together, "I know who I'm taking home tonight." At that, Ritsu walks towards the center of the dance floor, without any resistance from his green-clothed brother—with a flirtatious smile on his face as well—where Blondie and Melanie are duking it out.

From Kluá's view, it seems as though Melanie has the upper hand with her quick footwork since Blondie can't seem to get into a good position to attack. But if the green-clothed boy was as good as his brother in hand-to-hand combat, he would have realized that Blondie is only waiting for the perfect time to counter.

 _Melanie s'gonna try to end this fast._ Ritsu thought, using the part of his mind that is only meant for fighting.

Now just as Ritsu had predicted, Melanie goes for a double kick with her bladed high heels, hoping that her speed could overwhelm Blondie.

After the double kick, Melanie goes for a quick set of side-kicks, an axe kick, and then a reverse-spin axe kick. But before the kick-style Malachite twin could make contact with her last move, Blondie—who has blocked every attack effortlessly—reverse spins as well—coming back with a sharp elbow to the twin's mid-section.

As quick as Blondie hit Melanie with a low blow, she then grabs the twins hand and makes her "ring-around-the-rosy" before doing a jumping-reverse-spin-kick to the face, knocking the twin flat on her back.

Just as Melanie hit the floor, Ritsu takes a quick glance at the fallen Malachite twin and whistles, before turning his attention back to Blondie.

"Damn girl!"

Blondie turns towards Ritsu with her hands up ready to fight.

"What! You want some too!"

Ritsu takes a step back, putting his hands up, in the "I-mean-no-harm-gesture."

"Woah! Relax. Just wanna chat Goldilocks."

Blondie frowns at Ritsu and only slightly did she let her guard down. Though it was long enough to distract her from the silhouetted figure standing behind her at the other end of the club, by the bar.

With acute perception skills, both Ritsu and Blondie turn their attention to the silhouetted figure.

The spotlight above the silhouetted figure randomly turns on, revealing Junior with a very large rocket launcher.

"You're gonna pay for this." Was all Junior said, before he took aim… and fired.

* * *

"ROCKETS!?" Ritsu shouts, "MAN WHAT THE HELL!"

From Kluá's view, Blondie continues to hold her ground, while Ritsu—the toughest, most bad-ass guy he has ever known, runs like hell away from the barrage of rockets coming towards them. Now all of the rockets, except one, went after Blondie, only to miss and hit the floor where she once stood because, at the last second, the girl does a backwards handspring.

 _Impressive for someone of her skill,_ Kluá thought. _Though I think she's more capable than just shooting fireballs, fighting hand-to-hand, and doing acrobatics._

Another thought occurred in Kluá's mind. _I wonder what she's waiting for._

As if his thoughts were answered, a second wave of scatter rockets flew at only Blondie but this time the girl counters with her own barrage of fireballs.

When Junior realized that both missile-rocket waves had no effect on the girl, he ends up going on the offensive, by—to Kluá's surprise—turning his launcher into a giant baseball bat and leaping after the girl. Junior surprises the girl with a few successful hits and then sends her flying with a final blow to her face.

Unbeknownst to him, Kluá's was too occupied with how nonchalantly Blondie got up off the floor—after taking a several hits to the head, and then being flown into a glass case, and shattering it to pieces—to seeing his brother run in his direction with, now, two rockets hot on his tail.

"KLUÁ!" Ritsu yells, "MOVE!"

Wide-eyed, Kluá takes a dive to the side at the last possible second before Ritsu charged right past him and towards the restroom. Though Ritsu did not run into the restroom. Instead the muscular boy dives into the air and plants his hands on the top doorframe and, with one mighty push, launches himself back to where his brother dove, just as the rockets fly under him and explode the interior of the men's restroom.

Coughing, Kluá waves the smoke clear from his face to see the carnage that used to be the men's restroom.

"God damn," was the only comment Kluá said before taking his brother's hand to get back up off the dance floor.

"Dude Blondie is really going to town with Junior."

"huh?" Kluá said, confused by what his brother just said.

Though the confusion only lasted for a split-second, because the green-clothed boy sensed that "serious-vibe," that he gets from when Ritsu gets really interested into a fight.

After seeing the serious look on Ritsu's face, Kluá turns his attention to Blondie just pounded her fists together, creating a wave energy that just rose the temperature inside the club a good twenty to thirty degrees.

Both brothers now watch Blondie as she side-steps her way into Junior's personal space, dodging the barrage of missiles he fired unsuccessfully.

Before Junior could counter, Blondie attacks the club owner's upper body with a powerful combo of cross-punches. With every impact, the girl's punches exploded, releasing fiery energy that appeared to make each punch more deadly than the next.

Then with one final straight-punch, Blondie sends the club owner flying a good one-hundred feet to the opposite end of the club atop the small set of stairs, from where she stands.

 _Damn, she's definitely got power,_ Kluá thought.

Though, to undermine his thoughts, Blondie thrusts her fists down by her sides and releases a wave of energy that literally looked—and possibly felt—the same as a sun going super nova.

Such a wave of energy sent Kluá flat on his butt, while Ritsu stood motionless and completely unfazed.

"I think I'm in love."

From where Kluá is sitting, he looks at his brother sideways.

Just as Kluá was about to retort, he heard a loud battle cry that drew his attention back to Blondie, just as the powerful girl took the largest lunge after Junior delivers a hard-punch that sends the man flying out a second-story window.

"Jeez, and I thought Ritsu's punches were strong." The green-clothed boy said aloud.

"Pfft! Goldilocks wishes she was as strong as me."

Ritsu looks down at his brother.

"But you gotta admit, bro. Her battle cry's sexy."

Kluá shakes his head as he stands back up and dusts himself off. With one good look, the green-clothed looks at all the debris and unconscious henchmen lying around.

"Well, party's over."

Ritsu yawns.

"Man! That fight was exciting but now I'm tired."

The muscular glances at his brother. "Wanna go home now?"

Kluá nods, "yeah, let's go home."

At that, the twin brothers walk towards the stairs go up and out the front-door.

Just as the twin brothers walk out the large doorway, they notice a cute short girl in a red hood standing across the street.

"Ooh, who's she?" Ritsu asks, while he continues to gawk at the red-hooded girl.

"I don't know, let's just go home." Kluá turns to his brother, "Besides we gotta get ready for Beacon Academy and on top of that, we gotta meet up with Shieri and Fang."

At that the twins turn left down the street and continue to walk until they reach the corner and turn right to cross the street, which leads back to the residential district.

"Whatever man." Ritsu rests his hands on the back of his head. "Hey, you think Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks are going to Beacon?"

Kluá shrugs, "there's only one way to find out."


	2. Chapter 2

**CH2: The Silver Knight and The Black Fang**

 **Few weeks before to the night club incident.**

"How did we not see this?"

Inside the drop-ship, Shieri, who spaced-out by being preoccupied with his gear inspection, turns his attention momentarily back to the small round device that is projecting a hologram of the Atlesian General. Though, in the hologram, the General has his back turned, which makes the boy assume that the man was speaking to himself.

Or so he thought.

"Silver Knight?"

Once again, Shieri—suppressing what little frustration he has built by this annoyance—turns his head back to the hologram of the General, revealing no emotion whatsoever.

The General wore his usual attire, which composed of a three-piece suit—though the vest the man wore was gray, while the slacks and jacket were white. He also wore one white glove on his right hand; a Band-Aid over his brow and has black hair with grayish-white streaks on the sides, due to age—and possibly stress.

The General raises a brow at the boy, noticing his cold expression and his current attire for the mission he was being sent on.

Shieri's fashion for the trip is made up of a fitted, long-sleeved, black coat, with a large scarf-collar that has a sowed-in mask that covers the lower-half of his face, which also has silver-trims all around the coat—and a silver-stripe that goes from the collar down to the hem of the coat; gray-black combat-pants with knee-pads, and pistol-holsters; and black commando-boots. The boy also wore pieces of silver armor that covered vital organs, and vein arteries, which altogether makes him look like an armored priest.

* * *

"Must I repeat myself?"

Shieri sighs, "No, sir."

"Then how did we let this happen?" Then general slams his fist onto his desk.

"It could be that the White Fang sent one of their special units to hijack a section of the Schnee company freight-train."

"But why only a section and not the entire train?"

"Maybe your mechs were manufactured well and did their job this time?" Shieri retorts.

The General frowns as the young boy goes back to inspecting his weapons, which are a pair of small black dual-magnums that have the ability to transform into dual-sabers by adjusting the handles to extract blades made of pure Dust energy.

"May I remind you, Hurosaki, that this is a very serious matter," the General continues, "this is the first time that the White Fang have sent a pair of their own to steal _five_ train cars. Successfully."

"If they successfully stole five train cars," The Silver Knight puts his pistols in his holsters and tightens his shoe-laces, "then why do you have me doing a C-I, when you could have easily sent a battalion of troops, and airships to comb the land."

"You are not a criminal investigator, Silver Knight," the General retorts.

The Silver Knight began to repeat himself. "Then why am I-"

"You're on this mission, because one of the crewmen aboard the train reported a young Faunus girl disconnecting a section of the train," the General continues, "thus indicating the missing five train cars."

At this moment, Shieri wanted to ask why the General mentioned a young Faunus girl, but instead of asking, the boy merely answers his question out loud to clarify with the Atlesian.

"So you're assuming that this girl managed to eradicate a group of over thirty Atlesian Knight Drones and a large walker mech-"

"Yes, but-"

"-but she didn't do it alone, obviously," The Silver Knight interrupts, abruptly.

"No." The General frowns and types a few keys. "Apparently, video feed from one of the drones showed an older boy, standing on the edge of the train car that was separated from the rest of the train. Opposite, from where the girl was standing."

Shieri sighs and asks the main question that's been frustrating him in this situation, "So who I am going after then?"

"Well…" the General pauses for a moment, "you were to go after the boy but we lost sight of the entire stolen cargo and him. So you are to apprehend the girl instead."

From Shieri's view, the General appears to be typing something, though he cannot see what the Atlesian General is interacting with.

"So where is this girl now?"

"She was last seen jumping off the Schnee company train at a train-yard in the industrial district in the kingdom of Vale." The General answers.

"Right now?"

"Right now"

Shieri snorts, "I'm less than ten minutes away."

"Then you know what must do. Remember though, I want her alive."

Before the General reaches over to disconnect comm-chat with Shieri, he looks back up at the boy, whose cold expression actually seems a little, puzzled.

"Oh, and the Atlas Council is paying over one-hundred thousand lien for this contract." The General adds, "Also, I am sending what images we have captured regarding the Faunus girl, so you can have a visual on what you're looking for… Signing off, Silver Knight."

At that the hologram of the Atlesian General fades away, which automatically shuts off the little device.

Underneath his mask, the Silver Knight smiles. _It's a good thing we understand one-another, General Ironwood._

* * *

The young boy stands up from his seat aboard the drop ship and pulls out of his pocket a rectangular monocle HUD, and places it over his right eye. The boy takes a deep breath as the nano-drones that are released from the section of the HUD that covers his entire right ear, moving their way into his ear and attach themselves to his brain to create a neuro-connection from the HUD piece to his brain; heightening his sight, hearing, and perception senses. Without having to tire himself out by using his aura.

As the HUD device registers Shieri's bio-signs and other vital information that helps him out in the field; the boy walks toward the door leading to the cockpit of the drop-ship. He knocks on the door three-times, as per usual, to indicate he's jumping out of the drop-ship. In response to the boy's knocks, the pilot turns on the green-light signal atop the door.

Shieri now steps away from the door and moves towards the side hatch which is now opening wide, revealing a very beautiful morning sky.

The boy looks at the clock built in his HUD, which reads: _5:53 AM._

 _Damn, it's too early for this._ The Silver Knight thought.

At that last thought, the drop-ship slows to cruising speed, so as to remove any suspicions anyone would have on a lone military-grade drop-ship.

Once the drop-ship slowed, Shieri stood low and then leaped out the open hatch, into the morning sky.

* * *

As the Silver Knight started free-falling, he thought up the NAV-point of where the most recent location of the Faunus girl was; which turns out to be indicating northeast towards a Schnee Industrial warehouse—near the kingdom of Vale's train-yard.

 _Alright, let's fly._

The boy—as he continues to fall—focuses the energy of his aura into his back, allowing him to summon a pair of metallic—almost skeletal-like—wings, capable of allowing him to fly at supersonic speeds. Though since the mission requires stealth and reconnaissance, Shieri flies at the same cruising speed as the drop-ship that dropped him off.

From the air, Shieri scans the ground leading from his drop-off point, towards the large warehouse that flashes a giant snowflake logo on top of the roof. As the Silver Knight gets closer and closer to the building, he slows down to hover above the building. From here he uses his mind to activate the scoping mechanism built into the HUD monocle; though at the same time, summons a clear image of what the Faunus girl looks like.

The Faunus girl in the picture wears a low-cut, single-button, black-vest, with a white sleeveless top underneath; white short shorts; leggings that fade from black-to-purple from top-to-bottom; and a pair of black low heel shoes. Now as far as accessories go, the girl wears ribbons coiled up on her wrists, and a black arm-sleeve being held up by a white armband. Also a large black bow on her head, which from the boy's experience, is used to hide her animal-like ears—if she has any.

Shieri chuckles at the image of the Faunus girl. _It's always the pretty ones,_ he thought.

The Silver Knight _thinks_ the image away, and starts scanning the streets and buildings below, like a sentry drone. He looks down to the left at the train-tracks—nothing; then down to his right, where the entrance to the train-yard is, and still nothing. As the boy was about to do a slow turn-around, bio-information being scanned by his HUD catches his eye.

The bio-info that Shieri reads reveals organic movement near the entrance of the train-yard, though the movement is atop the smaller warehouses, which also reveals a figure free-running and leaping, heading east. It's the Faunus girl.

 _Now where do you think you're going?_

Slowly, Shieri glides in the same direction as the figure below. As he moves, the boy _thinks_ about zooming in—using the scoping mechanism, built into the HUD. The HUD then zooms in and locks onto the girl below.

* * *

Still keeping his distance, Shieri watches the Faunus girl run under the network of freeway overpasses and then cross into the residential district. Though again, the Faunus girl continues to leap across buildings to avoid detection below on the streets.

It was then, when the Faunus girl crossed the bridge into out of the industrial district and into the residential district that the Silver Knight realized which direction she's going.

 _She's heading towards Beacon Academy._ Shieri thought, _now why there?_

But then another thought hit him.

 _God dammit, she's going to sign up for the entrance exams._

At this thought, Shieri realized that if he doesn't kill her now, it will be very difficult to do so in front of highly experienced huntsman and huntresses that would be watching her during the exams.

One thing the boy has learned in the past, is that it would raise a lot of complications as to why the infamous Silver Knight is going around killing seemingly innocent girls. Also that would look very bad on him and the General—who at this moment, is his current employer.

The Silver Knight sighs and pauses for a brief moment. Then in an instant, he uses his aura to conjure up a shiny-silver helmet that looks very similar to the heads of the Atlesian Knight Drones that were on the Schnee company train. Though, he looks obviously scarier and far more intimidating than the drones themselves.

Once his HUD connected to his helmet, Shieri channeled his aura into his wings, allowing him to travel at supersonic speeds.

* * *

Within seconds, Shieri was on top of the Faunus girl as she jumped onto the flat roof of a building, that kitty-corners with the edge of a cliff.

As for the Faunus girl, she only had a split-second reaction time to stop-drop-and-roll, just as the Silver Knight flew over her head and landed several feet away, in front of the Faunus girl's path.

Shieri slowly turns around to face the Faunus girl who, as she slowly rises to one knee momentarily, has the look of a deer-Faunus caught in the headlights.

Without saying a word—as per usual of his hunts, Shieri reaches for his pistols and pulls them out of their holsters swiftly.

 _No remorse._ Shieri thought, _it's just business._

 _Boom! Boom!_

 **(And…)**

 **(…Nothing.)**

* * *

Never in his life has Shieri ever missed a shot—let alone two, at only less than six feet from his targets.

A shout roars from the Silver Knight's blindside.

On instinct, Shieri ducks just as the sound of wind being cut by a blade whistles over where his head used to be if he were continuing to stand. While staying low to the rooftop, the boy transforms his magnum-pistols into blade hilts and draws out the dust blades. The boy then performs a fast spinning sweep-attack in order to make the Faunus girl gain some distance from him. To dodge the attack, the Faunus girl performs a backwards handspring. Although, the Faunus girl was able to gain some distance from the Silver Knight, she misjudged her distance and ended up putting her lower back to the low-rooftop wall, almost making herself fall back and over the corner.

The Silver Knight sees this as an opportunity and lunges with his left blade at the girl's head and swings right; though the girl's swift agility allows her to lean to the side and dodge the blade by a mere centimeter. Again, the boy sees another opening and sweeps low at the knees, with his right blade, but again the girl's surprisingly nimble movements allow her to balance a hand on top of the wall of the rooftop, allowing her to lay flat in mid-air as the blades swoosh past her in both directions.

Frustrated, Shieri breaks his silence with a mechanical-like roar—which is due to the nano-drones inside his head, helping disguise his voice—and swings his blades horizontally once more, this time in opposite directions than his first attack. Though his attack was interrupted once the Faunus girl swung her legs out in one circular motion, with which her foot connected with the boy's face, causing him to spin and stagger back from the girl. Once the fuzz in the Silver Knight's HUD screen cleared, he transformed the blade in his right hand into its pistol form and fired multiple shots at the girl. The Faunus girl gasps and then dives to the right and—at the same time—unsheathes her weapon, removing the large bladed sheath, and revealing a transformable katana blade with a pistol for a hilt.

The girl then fires her own barrage of Dust-bullets at the Silver Knight.

In an instant, Shieri—the Silver Knight—channels his Aura into his back and summons his mechanical wings, and takes flight, dodging all rounds.

Moving faster than the speed of sound at such a short distance, Shieri, who only rose fifteen feet in the air, flies at the girl in a spiral-like flying technique. In the same motion, the boy performs a combat-roll in the air and kicks the girl in her mid-section. The impact was strong enough to send the girl straight through the rooftop corner-wall, down the street…

And…over the cliff into the body of water that's between the entire kingdom of Vale and Beacon Academy.

* * *

Down below on the streets, morning civilians jumped in surprise when they heard a loud _crack!_ sound. Some even looked up to where the sounds came from, while others ran and/or dove out of the way of falling debris. Also, some were surprised to see a boy in silver armor and mechanical wings stand before them atop the building where there is now a gap in the rooftop walls.

To Shieri's surprise, the civilians were oblivious to the fact that he just sent someone flying into the air. Without a response, the Silver Knight ignores the gathering crowd, and their gawking, and dashes through the air in the direction where he kicked the Faunus girl.

 _God dammit._ The Silver Knight groans.

 _This money better be worth the trouble_ , was all Shieri thought as he flew through the morning sky, after his target.

* * *

In the distance, far from where Shieri and the criminal Faunus girl tangled, another Faunus—a boy—sits atop a church roof and stares into the sunrise under his mask as it slowly rises from the oceanic horizon.

Slowly, the boy turns his head to the window next to him that's built just under the church bell tower. In his reflection, the Faunus boy has long-black hair and a light-skin complexion. He also wears a black Dust-woven sleeveless tank-top body-armor; a pair of make-shift black ninja-pants with a wide dark-violet coat-tail; and a pair of black-armored combat boots. As far as accessories go, the Faunus boy has a pair of vambraces that armor the backs of his hands, and forearms; a long-black ninja-muffler scarf; and a matching colored grim-mask that resembles combination of what a tiger and a creature of Grimm would look-like. Also, his choice of weapon is a dai-katana that continues to flow with purple electricity, though quite faintly.

The boy, with his arms crossed, glances at the photograph he was given of a Faunus boy with red hair and a long-sleeve coat with red-markings, and a young Faunus girl with long-black hair and cat ears. Both smiling, as if nothing that these two lived for ever existed.

The Faunus boy unfolds his arms and holds the photo high above his and lets it go in the wind. Then with one swift strike, the Faunus boy slices the photograph in half—clean down the middle.

As both halves of the photograph flow in the wind, the boy only snatches the half that has the Faunus girl in it, and tucks it deep into his right vambrace. Once he re-adjusted his vambrace, the boy's heightened hearing senses, catches a girl's voice. One he's all too familiar with…and must silence, once and for all.

* * *

Falling over the edge of the cliff, the Faunus girl collapses her katana blade and then throws her entire weapon up the cliff face, while holding onto the loose end of the ribbon that's wrapped around her weapons' hilt.

Lucky for the girl, her weapon was able to stick into the ground atop the cliff face. Once the girl landed her feet on the side of the cliff, she tested the ribbon to see if her weapon stuck well into the ground…which it did.

Just as the Faunus girl started climbing, Shieri flew over the edge and stopped high above the girl's head.

Then took aim, once more.

Though the Silver Knight had to cancel the shot, just as someone flung a flurry of electrified shurikens at him.

The Faunus girl stared wide-eyed for a moment, as she watched the person who just tried to kill her; dodge left, right, up, and down to defend himself from someone unbeknownst to her. But she quickly shook the thought of the mysterious savior from her head and dropped down the cliff face. The momentum of her fall allowed her to slingshot back up and onto the edge.

Once the girl was back on flat surface again, she turned to her right and finally saw who her _mysterious savior_ was. Though she could not believe who it was, yet deep down the Faunus girl knew the stories were true because if they weren't before, they are now.

The girl stares in astonishment as she watches the Black Fang fight her attacker with full force, using the very weapon that made others in the White Fang give him the fairytale-name he has now.

* * *

…The Black Fang ducks and spins, as the Silver Knight fires several rounds at him with his left pistol, and continuously follows-up with quick flurries of his right pistol-blade.

Without using his weapon, the Faunus boy slaps away the Knight's hand that holds the pistol-blade creating an opening in the Knight's attack pattern, and then closes in with a hard elbow to the abdomen, sending the Knight over the edge. Luckily though, Shieri recovered quickly enough to stop himself in mid-air.

Once stopped, Shieri took both of his weapons and slapped them together, causing the weapons to be engulfed in pure silver light. Holding the silver light in his right hand, Shieri flicks his wrist, which dissipates the light that was created by his own aura. With the aura gone, Shieri's weapons—which were once dual pistol-blades—were transformed into a single-large bladed gauntlet.

With a mechanical roar, Shieri swings his bladed-gauntlet horizontally, creating a large gust of wind that's condensed enough to be as sharp as any blade.

Such a wave caught the Black Fang by surprise, but his reaction time was fast enough to block the wave with his electrified dai-katana. Although, such force from the attack pushed the Faunus boy back several feet, leaving deep tracks in the grass.

Shieri uses this opportunity to fly towards the Black Fang and lands in front of him, while lunging with his weapon at the Faunus boy's mid-section.

At the last possible second—once the wave attack faded away—the Black Fang leaped into the air and flattens out his dai-katana on top of the Silver Knight's blade.

The Faunus girl's eyes goes wide as she watches the Black Fang perform a hand-stand, while balancing on his dai-katana, which is balanced atop the Silver Knight's blade-gauntlet like a teeter-totter.

With a grunt, the Silver Knight swings his bladed-hand and sends the Black Fang over him and closer to the edge. As the Black Fang lands lightly on his feet, he crouches low and swiftly throws three shurikens at the Knight. The shuriken attack fails when the Knight made a circular motion with his blade and thrusts it throw the ring of pure aura which—to both Faunus' surprise—distorts space and time within its attack range. Although, the Knight only concentrated enough to disintegrate the attack and nothing else around flying shurikens.

The Black Fang smirks under his mask and slowly rises from the ground.

 _How interesting,_ the Black Fang thought. _His attack style is very familiar._

 _Where have I seen this Faunus before?_ Shieri thought.

Momentarily both the Atlesian and Faunus stare-down one another, looking one another over for recognition. Yet at the same time, they both ignore the Faunus girl that they both were sent to kill. Who, in the meantime has taken the liberty of sneaking off, although a part of her wanted to stay and watch the fight.

Shieri quickly turns around to watch the Faunus girl disappear back deep into the residential district, atop the rooftops, again.

 _God damn Faunus!_ Shieri thought, _they always run._

Completely forgetting about the Faunus boy, the Silver Knight makes an attempt to take flight after his target before he completely loses focus.

Just as the Knight shot into the air after his target—not a second to soon, the Black Fang—moving at the same speed—met the Knight atop the house closest to the edge of the cliff.

Both assassins clash blades—once, twice, and then on the final strike, the Silver Knight, uses his aura to cloak his free-hand in silver-like metal, and then grapples the surprised Black Fang. Once the Knight had a firm grip on Faunus boy, he then flies backwards, over the edge and into the water below.

 _At least you'll be worth more than the girl._

As Shieri finished his thought, both boys crash deep into the water. The impact of the water made the Knight let go of the Black Fang, allowing the Faunus boy swim up freely to the surface.

Breaking through the surface of the water, the Black Fang then uses his aura to climb and stand atop the water surface.

For the first time in a while, the Black Fang kneels down to rest.

 _How can the assassin be as powerful as I,_ the Faunus boy thought. _No one has been able to match me. Not since Ad-_

The Black Fang's thoughts were interrupted by the sudden explosion of water that just occurred at a mere twenty meters away.

* * *

As the water settles down, the Silver Knight appears through the mist, hovering only inches above the water.

Quickly, the Faunus boy takes a defensive stance, holding his dai-katana upside-down at an angle. Though, his stance falters for a moment, when he notices something different about the boy who stands before him.

Shieri, who usually wore his black and silver attire, is now wearing a full-suit of silver and black-trimmed molecular-armor, with a matching thin robe-hooded jacket, and a silver-colored helmet that covers his entire head, except his right eye. All of this together, makes the Silver Knight, look like an actual…Silver Knight, but more of an animated character style though.

 _Ah,_ the Black Fang thought, _now I know who this is._ The Faunus boy also realized that his opponent's weapons has disappeared.

The Black Fang snorts, "Hmph. So you're the fabled Hero of Atlas."

Without a response, Shieri scans the Black Fang with his left eye.

The Faunus boy continues to speak, though this time he removes himself from his defensive posture.

"I have heard stories—rumors perhaps—of you." The Black Fang points his blade at the Knight, "You have been known for countless assassinations and needless murders amongst those with higher authority within the White Fang. Such deaths have given us reason to commit the same acts just as you perform…though our messages are quite clearer than what you wish to expect."

Shieri smiles under his helmet. "Is that why they send the Grimm Reaper…aka you. The Black Fang." His voice still under the mechanical impression-disguise.

A moment of silence fills the air as both assassins glare at one another.

Shieri continues speak, though this time he reads off the info he discovered about his opponent.

"Alias: The Black Fang. Actual name: Fang Shegatsuki. Race: Faunus. Type: Faunus Dog…looks like we are one in the same. Except you are just as loyal and obedient as an actual dog."

At that last part Shieri spoke, the Black Fang frowns in anger and tightens his grip on his weapon, then channels his aura into it, preparing to attack.

Following suite, the Silver Knight summons his blade-gauntlet—which still remains the same before his transformation—and charges his aura into the weapon as well.

As the Black Fang crouches low the surface of the water, the Silver Knight charges his over-boost ability for his wings. Both boys stare at one another as the power bestowed upon their weapons reach their peak.

Within an instant, both assassins shout a battle cry, and then dash at each other and swing their blades across their chests, both sending a thin—but very powerful—wave of Dust and aura-energy.


	3. Chapter 3

**CH3: A Family Reunion?**

 **Somewhere not far away from the two assassins' meeting.**

"Holy-" Ritsu turns his attention upward towards the rooftops in the distance. "There's a hot girl running on the rooftops!"

Kluá gives his brother a sideways glance, as the Titanist watches a Faunus girl leap out of sight.

"God Ritsu, is there anything you don't have a good eye for."

"Ugly girls." Ritsu says nonchalantly.

 _God you're discriminatory,_ Kluá thought. The boy shakes his head, "Sometimes I wish we never brought you into modern society and just left you in the hole you call a Kingdom."

Ritsu quickly turns to his brother with a look of almost anger. Judging by the smile on Kluá's face when he said that, Ritsu realized that he was only being sarcastic and withdraws any anger he felt towards his own twin brother.

The muscular boy sighs and places his hands on the back of his head.

"Sooo….exactly where are we going to find our other half of this so called family of ours?"

"Who knows," Kluá shrugs, "They're assassins. For all we know, they could be doing some cool assassination stuff."

Ritsu looks at his brother, as they continue to walk down the road aimlessly. Every now and then, bystanders would pay little attention to the twins, though on occasion most would pay more attention to the muscular boy because they automatically recognize the tribal attire of that of a Titan.

Just as the last citizen on the sidewalk passes by the twins, Ritsu snorts.

"An assassin ain't better than your average sexy Titanist."

"You're one helluva cocky person Ritsu." Kluá replies back.

"Hey, you know it's true." Ritsu places a hand on his brother's shoulder, "Everyone knows that a huntsmen—or a huntress—are nowhere near as strong as the weakest Titan."

A thought pops-up in Kluá's mind.

The green-clothed boy looks at his brother, "I didn't know that there were weak Titans in Tartarus." A sly smile appears on the boys, "you know, you've never shown your semblance or any other epic skills that you _supposedly_ have. So that makes me wonder about-"

In an instant, Ritsu grabs the back of Kluá's collar and lifts him into the air without any effort.

"-me being the weakest one, right?" the Titanist says, finishing his brothers sentence.

"Uuh…never mind." Kluá replies, feigning defeat.

Ritsu snorts, "That's what I thought…Come on we have twins to find."

Kluá crosses his arms together. "Fine. Whatever." He says, still dangling from his collar.

* * *

"Get… lost!" The Silver Knight shouts as he fires a large beam of pure aura energy form his blade-gauntlet that cuts through the wind at such a speed, it causes the water under the beam to rise up and spiral around the beam.

 _So much power,_ Fang thought as he dodges the large beam and creates some distance between him and the Silver Knight.

 _This is the fourth time he's fired a beam with the same amount of power. How can he still fight!?_

As the beam fades away, Shieri lowers his weapon and then charges at the Faunus boy. Fang readies himself to parry the Silver Knights attack.

Before Shieri's weapon made contact with Fang's dai-katana, he side-boosts. At such a high speed—to the Faunus boy—it looked like he vanished.

"WHAT!?" Fang cries out, looking around for his opponent.

In a blink of an eye, Shieri reappears at Fang's blind-side and swings his blade-gauntlet at the Faunus' mid-section.

Luckily for Fang's training, he manages to parry the surprise attack, though both assassins are shocked by what each one did.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Both assassins shout, with wide-eyed looks on their faces.

As their dead-lock continues to hold, the assassins lock eyes with one another.

"I just let a valuable target get away because of your unwanted presents." Shieri says sharply, "Although, I should thank you for revealing yourself to me," he emphasizes, " _Fang Shegatsuki._ You're worth quite a lot to the Atlas Council."

"Exponentially more than that Faunus runaway." The Knight adds.

Fang smiles under his Grimm mask. "Not as much as you'll be worth to the White Fang, _Shieri Hurosaki._ "

 _Wait!_ Shieri's facial expression changes to somewhat a surprised look. _How does he-_

"We have been monitoring your every contract." Fang says, "Although you have been proven to be very difficult to track. Yet we were able to learn who you are. Such as your name." Fang leans forward, closing the gap between the two. "You should be thankful that that's all the info we have been able to obtain about you, thus far."

Now it's Shieri's turn to smile under his helmet. "The feelings' mutual."

Fang snorts, "Just as the feeling's mutual about our target."

"Looks like we have more in common than I thought." Shieri says, "Too bad only one of us gets the prize."

"We'll see." Fang tightens his grip on his weapon, "Right now, I wish to finish this fight."

At that, Shieri channels his aura into the center of his chest, preparing to use one of his most powerful attacks. "Again. The feeling's mutual."

* * *

Ritsu suddenly stops and lets his brother go. "Hey."

Kluá dusts himself off and then turns to his muscular brother, "What? Did your arm get tired or something."

Ritsu looks at his brother with a serious look. "No, but seriously, did you actually hear that?"

"Uh…no. What I miss?"

"Just listen."

Noticing his brother's serious expression, Kluá tries to focus his hearing to pick-up unfamiliar sounds.

 **And nothing.**

"What am I supposed to be hearing?" Kluá asks, obviously feeling clueless as ever when Ritsu gets like this.

The Titanist frowns at his brother. "If you can't hear, then use your semblance, idiot."

"Alright, alright, alright." Kluá puts his hands up, "no need to get angry."

"Then do it!" Ritsu shouts.

"Okay! God damn!" Kluá cries out.

 _It must be a fight if he's getting all bat-shit crazy-serious about this,_ Kluá thought.

At that, the green-clothed boy takes a step away from his brother, turns away from him, and closes his eyes.

Now that Kluá centered himself with his semblance, the green-clothed boy focuses the Elements of Nature to feel the world around himself and his brother.

 _Ritsu said to listen so…_

From what the Elementist learned, Sound is connected to the Wind element. The boy focuses on that particular element to hear what his brother hears.

As per usual, the Elementists' predictions were correct.

 _Jeez, if I had one lien for every time this happened…_ Kluá doesn't even bother finishing the thought. Instead he turns back to his brother and nods.

Ritsu grins, "Come on, this is one helluva fight that's goin' on."

At that, both the Titanist and the Elementist take off running east.

* * *

As Fang leaps high into the air he uses his aura to thrust back down at Shieri. He shouts his usual "Ooh-Wah!" battle cry.

Fang strikes down and clashes blades with Shieri's blade-gauntlet. The speed and power sent half of the Knight's body into the water.

 _Finally._ Fang thought _his power is weakening. I can finish him now._

 _Damn! If I keep this up, I'll drain my aura completely._ Another thought occurred in Shieri's mind. _I should probably thank Fang after this for preventing me from using my chest beam, otherwise this would've been over already._

Slowly, as Fang pushes Shieri—who's too weak right now—into the water, he reaches behind his back and unsheathes a small tanto-dagger.

 _I win Shieri the Silver Knight,_ was Fang's last thought before he struck down at the opening in the Knight's helmet.

Before Shieri's head went underwater he managed to catch a glimpse of the dagger coming down on him.

Once his entire body went underwater, the Knight reaches up and grabs the dagger by its blade with his silver-coated free hand. The sudden thrust of the Knight's hand coming out of the water was enough to stun Fang momentarily because of the splash it caused. Also—to the Knights luck—the splash of water managed to get inside the Faunus' mask blinding him almost completely. The water over the Black Fang's eyes, made him almost instinctively make the motion of reaching up with the hand that held the tanto, but such movement made him lose grip on the small dagger, allowing the Knight to yank the dagger free. With the dagger free, the Knight uses the thrusters in his wings to push himself out of the water, as well as swiftly twirling the tanto in his hand until he held it under-hand. Then with one quick motion, the Knight breaks the dead-lock and swing his arm, that's holding the tanto, in an upward arch. Such speed, allowed the little tanto to cut clean through Fang's Grimm mask.

A roar of pain came out of Fang's mouth as the tip of the blade cuts through his skin. Luckily though, the blade missed his left eye, completely.

Before Shieri could deliver the final blow, the Faunus boy leaps away, quickly enough to avoid the swinging blade, which would have cut him across his mid-section. Although the tip of Shieri's blade-gauntlet still managed to cut through the fabric of the Faunus' clothing.

"Come on!" The Knight charges the Faunus boy once again.

Once in range, Shieri performs a flurry of attacks, though each attack is met with a miss or contact with Fang's dai-katana. Such a rush on Shieri's part has caused the Faunus boy to go into his defensive posture, which involves a series of: flips, spins, ducks, and parries. Although each move that the Faunus assassin makes, gets harder and harder as the Knight performs spins and twirls with his blade-gauntlet.

Shieri performs one more sideways spin, with which he was able to slap Fang's weapon downward, leaving the assassin open for another attack. Though instead of delivering a final blow, the Knight side-kicks the Faunus boy away from him, sending him to skid across the waters' surface. The power of Shieri's kick was strong enough to cause Fang to crash into the wall of the cliff-face.

"Damn," Fang groans to himself, "How is he getting stronger than I. He shouldn't-"

Shieri interrupts Fangs self-talk by hovering in front of the small crater that he created by kicking the Faunus boy. The Knight hovers closer the Faunus assassin until he has to crouch in order stand within the small crater.

"I'm stronger than you," Shieri says, "because you limit your powers to certain abilities…such as your weapon."

At that Shieri rips Fang's dai-katana from his hands without any struggle and tosses it into the water. The Faunus boy watches in disbelief as his only weapon, that's been by his side since his first training session with his master, floats to the bottom of the riverbed.

"Jitseen…" Fang mumbles quietly.

Shieri smirks under his mask "Don't worry, you'll join your weapon soon enough."

Slowly, the Knight cocks his _bladed_ hand back for a fatal thrust attack.

"To hell, you Atlesian dog," was Fang's last words before he closed his eyes.

Shieri snorts. "This is the end."

* * *

"WOAH! Hold on there a sec." a random voice shouts.

Fang quickly opens his eyes, in time to watch Shieri's body distort as he's pulled away from the entrance of the small crater by some unknown force.

 _What was—where did he go?_ Fang thought, slightly panicked.

Fang slowly calms his breathing as he tries to gather his strength to move his limbs.

 _Damn, not enough strength._ Fang grimaces at the slight pain that his body is now finally registering. Though unbeknownst to him, that pain was more than what he could normally take.

Almost instantly, darkness starts to envelop the Faunus boy's vision.

 _No…this…can't be._ Was the Black Fang's final thought before the darkness completely took him over. Indicating his unforeseen death.

 **Or so the Faunus assassin assumed.**

* * *

 _IMPOSSIBLE!—Ooh-wah!—you will join your weapon soon enough—Jitseen…—This is the end—it…can't…be—_

"Hey, Beast Boy! Wake...The…Hell…UP!" Ritsu shouts while shaking the unconscious Black Fang violently.

To Kluá, the futile attempt to wake the Faunus boy seemed useless and almost frightening since, half the time Ritsu usually forgets how _really_ strong he is. Although, to the Elementists' surprise, the violent shakes actually worked once he realized that the moaning sounds were coming from the unconscious Fang.

"Ritsu Stop! He's coming through!"

Abruptly, Ritsu lets go and lets the boy plop back down on the bed, while making a muffled * _thump*_ sound.

"Geez. This guys' gotta be weak if he's been out for almost a day…" Ritsu says, "Just from fighting, alone" he adds.

As if Ritsu's nonchalant insult was enough to be a wake-up call, Fang's eyes open wide, showing his immediate awareness to his surroundings.

In a flash, before Ritsu could fully turn his body away—and before Kluá could use his semblance to stop him, Fang sits up and lashes a hand out in a cutting motion to slit the Titanist's throat. Although the Faunus assassin's hand stops abruptly at the muscular boy's throat, when he realizes that his murderous attempt failed.

For a moment, silence filled the room like water overflowing a cup.

Though, all of sudden, Ritsu's laughter breaks the silence once he hits floors of the dorm-room that the Titanist, and Elementist occupied.

"Did you! Did—Pftt!—" the muscular boy couldn't even finish his sentence because of how ridiculous he believes Fang's assassination attempt was.

Both the Elementist, and the Black Fang, watch the Titanist in disbelief as he rolls on the floor of the dorm room. It was probably a good couple of minutes before Ritsu settled back down.

The muscular boy takes several deep breaths to calm himself, just as Shieri opened the dorm-room door.

A look of utter confusion wiped away the seriousness in the Silver Knight's stature as he gawked at the Titanist. Though quickly, the Knight's gaze goes from the boy sitting on the floor to boy sitting up on the bed.

Shieri glares at Fang, "hmm…you're awake and alive, I see." He turns to Kluá before Fang could respond. "Headmaster Ozpin wants to see us." He glances at both Ritsu and the Faunus boy again, "All of us."

At that Shieri leaves the doorway and disappears down the hallway heading toward the elevators at the center of the entire First Years' dorm.

Fang continues to glare at his still-be opponent, even as he disappears from the doorway.

"Hmm…good to see he's well and living." Fang says to himself, half-mocking the Silver Knight.

Ritsu stands up and moves out of the way before watching the Faunus boy get up out of bed and gathers his belongings. Though he stops when he realizes that a few things are off once he caught a glimpse of himself in the window in his peripheral.

Fang notices that the area around his left eye is bandaged and the cut that was created by Shieri is stitched, yet it looks as though it wasn't fully stitched closed.

 _At least the scarring is only two centimeters thick,_ Fang thought. _Sadly, it'll be noticeable._

Another thought occupies the Faunus boy's mind. Though this thought sends the boy into somewhat a panic as he looks likes around almost frantically.

The Elementist leans back against the wall next to the doorway and sighs as he crosses both his arms and legs.

"Don't worry," Kluá says, "Your weapon and the rest of your stuff is in the Headmaster's office. Up in the clock tower."

Fang stares at the Elementist with a puzzled look.

The Elementist removes himself from the wall and gestures to both his brother and the Black Fang. "Come on, I'll explain more once we're inside Ozpin's office."

At that, the three boys exit the dorm-room.

It was then, once they walked out the door, that Fang realized that both the Titanist and the Elementist look exactly like him and Shieri. Except he's the only one with different eyes of course.

* * *

"Exactly why are we here again?" Ritsu, leans back against the wall outside of the Headmaster's office.

From where the muscular boy stands, he turns to Kluá—though stops momentarily when he notices the tension between Shieri and Fang. Though he just shrugs and ignores the two.

"I'm mean why find us?" Ritsu adds, "What the hell are we supposed to do?"

"I dunno-"Kluá shrugs, "—when I was still at Haven academy, the headmaster told me that I was to go here to meet Professor Ozpin, and then Ozpin told me to go find you guys."

"I'm curious as to how this professor figured out who we are." Fang says, changing the subject.

Kluá and Ritsu turn to Fang, who has his arms folded across his chest and has his back to the side of the Secretary's desk—Shieri mirrors him at the other end of the desk.

"Ozpin has well hidden connections throughout the four kingdoms." Shieri answers, his eyes focused on the floor, though his mind is not.

 _What are you up to now Ozpin?_ Shieri thought as his gaze moves up from the floor. _It's already bad enough that Ironwood has eyes on you from every corner of this damn continent._

"Well…" Ritsu claps his hands together as he removes himself from the wall, "whatever it is, it better be good' cause I was having lots' o' fun in Vacuo."

Kluá laughs a little. "Ha! I don't think starting fights and stealing girlfriends really count as _having fun_."

"Of course it does!" At that Ritsu pulls Kluá into a headlock, nearly choking his brother.

"That's how we Titanists live." Ritsu says.

Almost instantly, both Fang and Shieri's facial expressions changed quickly to something from shock and awe, to hate and anger. Both assassins also take up battle stances as they face history's greatest enemy.

"Titanists still live!?"

"I thought we killed you barbarians!"

For a moment, tension builds between the assassins and Ritsu. Though it was only short-lived since the Titanist regarded both boys with a dismissive look.

"Hey," Ritsu lets go of his elemental brother, "those days are good as gone. Nowadays, I'm the only Titan who still follows the dead religion of Titanism."

Fang puts his hands down just as Shieri holsters his pistols when they both realized that Ritsu wasn't going to take a battle stance.

"Why are you the only Titan following the old traditions?" Fang asks.

"Because I'm the only one who wants to keep ties with the old ways. The old ways are what make the Titans who they are."

"Riiight" Shieri says sarcastically.

At that Kluá finally exhales after holding his breath for a while now.

"Jeez, I wonder how I was going explain this to Ozpin." The Elementist says under his breath, feeling relieved that things didn't get any worse. Though in the same instant he tenses up again when he hears a familiar voice coming from a familiar room.

"What would you have to explain to me, Kluá?"

At the sound of the voice, the four brothers turn to the man with snow-white hair, and a fair skin-complexion; who wears a three-piece dark-green-suit and holds a cane in one hand. Though the four brothers gaze upon the headmaster of Beacon Academy, only two out of the four know this man from past experiences.

"Professor Ozpin." Both Kluá and Shieri say in surprise. Though one sounded more surprised than the other.

"Hmm, I see you hardly had any trouble in bringing the other three." The headmaster says observing the Silver Knight, the Black Fang, and the Titanist.

"Nope, not at all." Kluá chuckles nervously.

The Headmaster regards the young Elementist with a smile, and then gestures the four to enter his office. For a moment, Shieri and Fang gaze at one another; and then at Ritsu, and Kluá—who just shrugs and walks into the large office.

* * *

Inside Professor Ozpin's office, a beautiful middle-aged huntress stands beside the sitting headmaster, holding what looks like a scroll tablet. From where she stands, the women observes the four students, who all stand side-by-side in a line of some sort.

The huntress taps a few keys on her tablet before glancing at the headmaster for a brief moment.

"This is quite the diverse group you've assembled, Ozpin."

"As a proud huntsman and headmaster, I accept—and welcome—all walks of life to come to my academy." The headmaster eyes three out of the four boys, making them all of a sudden feel uncomfortable.

"Well, let us see what kind of _walks-of-life_ you've brought to the academy."

At that, the four boys now feel awkward standing in the headmaster's office, which is a surprise for three of them, since the Silver Knight, the Black Fang, and the Titanist never felt this way about anything before.

"Uhhh…Glynda, what are you talking about?" Kluá asks, oblivious to the uncomfortable expressions that his brother, and the other two look-alikes are showing.

"You'll see in a moment, Mátaké."

Dumbfounded, the Elementist just watches the huntress stroll around to the front of Ozpin's desk to stand before him.

The huntress standing before the boy has dark-gray eyes and a pair of glasses; with blonde-hair, styled with a long curl on the right side of her face, and her hair parting at the middle-left side of her head, with the rest of her hair tied in a bun on the back of her head. She then wears some sort of white blouse or camisole; with a black button-up skirt that reaches down mid-thigh, and up just below her chest in the front; a pair of black leggings, with black knee-high high-heel boots; She also wears a black mid-sized cape that ends with squiggly arrows for the tips, and is purple on the inside—which also has a design of a crown and lined dots. She also carries a wand on the side of her right boot.

"Kluá Mátaké…"Glynda says, "a current student at Haven academy in the Kingdom of Mistral…let's see—you were registered a year early due to your excellent skills in combat and outstanding intellect—" at that, Kluá's face turns red, "—you do not have a current weapon you use, but records show that your semblance is your best weapon of choice in battle."

Glynda focuses her eyes on the Elementist. "Exactly what is your semblance?" the huntress taps the screen on her scroll-tablet and a video of Kluá fighting a horde of Creatures of Grimm, which she shows to the boy. The other three boys lean to the side a little to watch the short video.

"In this video we retrieved from Haven academy, it clearly shows that as you are fending off a wave of Grimm, with—what looks like—earth, wind, fire, and water." The huntress adds.

"Yeah, uh…" Kluá clears his throat, "my semblance lets me bend the elements of nature at my will. It's why students at Haven academy titled me, The Elementist."

"I see," was all Glynda said, before she decided to move to stand in front of Ritsu.

"Ritsu Kutasaki…" she starts, "a citizen of the underground city, Tartarus. Home of the once powerful enemies of both Humans and Faunus' alike, the Titans."

Ritsu snorts.

The sound Ritsu made, had Glynda take a quick glance at the boy. The huntress's glance was long enough to put her in an almost trance-like state when she noticed the thick-lined tribal tattoos that slightly covers the boy's torso. Though it wasn't the tattoos that really got her attention. It was how chiseled and muscular the Titanists' torso is.

 _So this is what a Titan looks like up close,_ Glynda thought. _Interesting. I've never—_

The sound of the headmaster clearing his throat breaks the huntress out of her reverie.

Glynda Goodwitch was quick to hide her embarrassment before focusing on her tablet once again, ignoring the cocky smirk on the Titanist's face.

"Um…"The huntress clears her throat. "From what we discovered about you, Ritsu…is that you too, do not have weapon of your own. Instead—" she flips the scroll-tablet for the four boys to see, "—you fight with your bare hands and feet."

Shieri, Fang, and Kluá watch in awe almost, as the video shows Ritsu, single-handedly, taking on today's three known giant Creatures of Grimm, which are the Giant Nevermore, the Deathstalker, and the largest of the three—the Alpha Goliath, all at once.

"Wait, this can't be possible." Shieri says, "No one in history has been able to take on these creatures at once before. Not even the most powerful huntsmen or huntresses."

"Yeah. Especially if the Goliath is one of _the_ Alpha Goliaths." Kluá adds.

Ritsu snorts. "Maybe not in Human or Faunus history, but it happens all the time in Titan history."

Dismissively, the headmaster's assistant closes the screen on her scroll-tablet and then moves to both Fang and Shieri, addressing them both at the same time.

"Fang Shegatsuki and Shieri Hurosaki…you two have an interesting background." The huntress turns to the headmaster, just as her eyes glint with surprise. "Ozpin you cannot be serious about these two. They're—"

"It's okay Glynda." At that, Professor stands up from his seat and places a shattered Grimm mask, and a long weapon wrapped in cloth on the front edge of his desk; before moving to stand next to his assistant.

"Shieri…" the Headmaster faces the Atlesian, "I have known for a while now, that your work is not of your choice. Instead you have been forced to fulfill these contracts, hoping that one day the general will forget what you have done. Although that hasn't been the case, if I'm correct?"

The Silver Knight regards the headmaster with an emotional expression, as he talks.

"I fail to understand where you're getting at, Professor."

"I know what happened on your last expedition, which resulted in you being the sole survivor of a three-team effort mission."

From the corner of Shieri's eye, Fang shifts a little.

Still keeping his poker face, Shieri slowly reaches for one of his pistols. He unclips the holster.

"So you know what happened?"

By now, the Silver Knight has already pulled his pistol free, though he continues to keep it at his side. This act of defiance doesn't faze the headmaster and his assistant, although it did put Kluá in a worried state.

For precaution, Fang grips Shieri's hand—which holds the pistol, causing the Atlesian to break his emotionless stare, and glare at the Faunus boy—who keeps a calm look.

A series of overwhelming thoughts run through Fang's mind when he touched his enemy, but in the end, it gave him an idea.

"Let us listen." Fang says carefully, so as to not antagonize the Knight.

It seemed such words had more of an effect that the Faunus boy actually thought, because Shieri snorts and then holsters his pistol again.

"Since when did my enemy start to care?"

Kluá clears his throat "Don't you mean Brother, Shieri?"

Both the Black Fang and the Silver Knight turn heads to each other for a moment, but quickly divert their attention to the Elementist, with shock in their eyes. Luckily for the two assassins the rest of their body languages doesn't betray them, in this particular situation.

Ritsu throws his hands up in the air. "Great, you just had to say it, didn't you nature boy?"

The Elementist turns to his brother. "Hey. Don't shoot the messenger."

The Titanist chuckles a little, "Yeah. Right. Whatever."

Now the muscular boy turns to the Headmaster, who seems pleased with himself, although for reasons completely unknown him. Or at least the boy doesn't really care about.

"Hey," Ritsu says, "Headmaster Oz-guy. Can we wrap this up, I'm getting bored here."

Professor Ozpin regards Ritsu with a small smile, before taking a quick glance at the other three boys. From what the professor can see, he notices that both Shieri and Fang are both shocked in disbelief, which seems very surprising since the records he keeps on the two, show that neither one expresses emotions of any kind, as well as not having any personal attachments to people and certain things.

 _This is what's to be expected from those who have known only battle,_ Ozpin thinks.

"Very well, Ritsu" the Professor says, "I'll do my best to keep the information I am about to express to the four of you, short and brief. Although I cannot confirm that what I am about to say will go without questioning."

Ritsu sighs. "Whatever."

At that, the Headmaster picks up where he left off at, before the minor set-back from Kluá's little outburst.

* * *

"From what I am hearing, Ozpin…" Shieri walks away from the other three boys and around the headmaster's desk to stand in front of the very large window, that out looks the entire campus, and city. The boy then gazes upon the view of the entire kingdom of Vale.

"Is that those three—" Shieri points to his look-alikes, "is that they—we are brothers. As in blood related, correct?"

"That's what he's saying, you crazed, Atlesian assassin-brother." At that, Ritsu—who snuck up on the Knight, wraps an arm around the boy's shoulders. Although the moment was short-lived when the Atlesian boy removed the Titanists' arm from his shoulders, and then walks back to the front of the Headmaster's desk.

"How does it feel knowing that you're related to a Titan, a Faunus, and a Mistralian?" Kluá asks, as Shieri moves to stand by him.

"It depends," Shieri mocks, "How do you feel knowing that you're related to an exile and two polar-opposite assassins?"

"Uh…would: I dunno be okay?"

"For now, at least." The Silver Knight says.

From where he stands, Shieri glances at Fang, and then at Kluá again, before locking eyes with Ozpin.

At this moment, the huntress, Glynda, has already left the office to run an errand, leaving the four boys and the Headmaster alone in the large office.

"So this mission…" the Silver Knight starts, "you haven't fully explained it…as well as our situation. What is it that you are waiting for? Also, how did you manage to keep two assassins hidden from their clients?"

Just as Ozpin opened his mouth to speak, one of the other three boys interrupts him.

Ritsu groans, "enough with the questions, dammit!"

Everyone turns to the Titanist, only to watch him walk towards the wall next to the doorway office door. Only to lean back against.

"I'm already getting bored here. Can't we go do something, you know…fun?"

Fang takes a glance at the muscular boy, "I have not known an individual to be so impatient...until now."

"Well you obviously haven't had any fun in your life, you dead-serious White Fang fanatic."

The Faunus assassin just eyes the Titanist, and regards him with absolute silence.

"What? You got nothing to back it up?" the Titanist asks, a smile creeps up on his face.

"As long you remain my _brother,_ I will keep our conversations to a bare minimum."

"Oh, really?"

Fang stares in silences.

"Wow. You're not kidding."

At that Kluá sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. The Elementist then turns to Professor Ozpin.

"Anyways, what were you going to say Professor?"

Ozpin smiles as he walks around to go sit down on his chair. "This will take some time, so I may suggest that the four of you get comfortable."

At that, neither one of the four boys moved from their spots in the large office as the Headmaster of Beacon Academy explained, in very precise detail, what was about to change their entire lives, from here on out.


	4. Chapter 4

**CH4: Babysitting Before Exams**

 **Present day.**

"God!" Ritsu groans, "Babysitting sucks!"

"That's enough, you're gonna blow our cover." Shieri says sharply.

Both the Silver Knight and the Titanist sit perched atop the roof of a building across the street of a small dust shop. The same shop that their current target just entered.

After sitting for hours, playing the waiting game, Ritsu removes himself from his current position to go lay down near the edge of the roof. From where the muscular boy lies he gazes upon the stars in the sky, and then the shattered moon.

 _Soon, I'll be strong enough to do that._ The Titanist thought.

Silence soon filled the air as Ritsu's thoughts continue to ponder on the idea of how much dust he could consume to make himself powerful.

While the Titanist continues to stargaze, Shieri—who's been watching with absolute concentration—switches the vision mode in his HUD to X-ray mode. With X-ray vision, the assassin spots an average-height skeletal figure and a short skeletal figure.

Already, Shieri confirms the short skeletal figure as the girl they're supposed to be watching.

"So what's she doing?" Ritsu says calmly.

"She's just reading a magazine." Shieri says, without diverting his attention.

The Titanist groans loudly, causing the Knight to turn to him.

"Can you groan any louder?" Shieri says through gritted teeth under his mask, "I don't think she can't hear you, yet."

"Yeah, whatever." Ritsu breathes.

At that the muscular boy, rolls over and looks over the edge of the building.

Ritsu yawns, "Man, when are we supposed to go talk to her…"

Shieri turns his attention back to the dust shop, across the street below.

"When something happens that requires our support."

"Like what?"

"Like a fight or something…she does want to be a huntress." Shieri says irritatingly.

"Ha." Ritsu reaches over and slaps Shieri on the back, "Why be a huntress, when you can be a Titan."

For a moment, Shieri felt a little annoyance because of Ritsu's personality, as well as an unexpected pain from the slap the Titanist gave him. Though, the Atlesian's facial expression does not betray him, to reveal that he feels any pain at all.

 _I didn't think Titans were that strong,_ Shieri though. _Let alone that I'd be related to one._

"Hey," Ritsu whispers. "Shieri, check this out."

The Knight sighs, out of frustration. "Why do you insist on distracting me from our mission?"

"You know this is important." Shieri adds, while watching the skeletal figure of the young girl flip through the magazine that she must have.

"We need to make sure this girl gets home safely tonight, due to the rise of Dust robberies, in this area."

"Yeah…about those robberies…"

At that Shieri notices the different tone in the Titanists' voice, which causes him to take is eye off the girl and look at the muscular boy.

From where the Atlesian lies, he sees the muscular boy's eyebrows furrow with concentration. Although from Shieri's position, he cannot see what Ritsu is seeing. So to get a better view, Shieri crawls over to lay next to the Titanist and looks down at the empty road. And from what the Silver Knight is gazing upon, he could have only hoped for anyone else but Him.

* * *

"What's this guy's problem…everyone seems to move out of his way."

Shieri switches off the X-ray mode built into his HUD, only to curse under his breath.

"What?" Ritsu turns to his brother, "You know this guy?"

The Silver Knight snorts, "yeah…I'm surprised that you don't."

"Yeah…well I'll remember to ask peoples' names' first before I kill them."

Shieri glares at his brother for a moment, before going back to watching the man in the white coat, dark-brown slacks, black gloves, brown dress-shoes; who also wears a bowl hat; and walks with a cane.

"You know I was joking, right?" Ritsu says feigning concern of his brother's sense of humor.

"I'll remember to laugh next time…but right now…That man in the white, down below…is the infamous Roman Torchwick."

"He is well known for robbing Dust shops, and military armaments; kidnapping; escaping arrest; and being a well-renown sociopath." The Knight adds.

Ritsu, makes a low whistling sound.

"Sounds like this guy has been around town, a lot lately."

"Yeah…"

At that Shieri, slowly turns his head as the Kingdom of Vale's greatest thief/sociopath, continues to cross the road…and into the Dust shop.

"No…" the Atlesian says quietly.

* * *

Swiftly and quietly, Shieri summons his wings and leaps gracefully across the street. He then lands atop the roof of the Dust shop. Luckily for the Silver Knight, the thug below guarding the front door below did not notice—or hear, him. The same goes for the Atlesian's brother since he followed suit.

From where he stands, Ritsu leans over the edge to look down at the thug dressed in black, with a red sword in one hand.

"Hey" Ritsu says, "did I forget to mention that I knew where those thugs in black came from?"

Away from the edge of the rooftop, Shieri takes out his dual pistols to inspect them. He doesn't take his eyes off his weapons as he speaks to his brother.

"No. You forgot to mention that."

"Yeah, it was a couple of nights ago when Kluá and I went to go celebrate." Ritsu says, with a smile on his face. "Those guys belong to the club owner, Junior."

The thought of that Goldilocks girl fighting in Junior's club, came to the muscular boy's mind.

 _Damn,_ Ritsu thought. _What would I've given to see that girl again?_

"Yeah, again. You both forgot to mention that too" Shieri says, interrupting the Titanists' reverie.

Ritsu shrugs, "What-evs."

At that, the muscular boy crouches low to the edge of the rooftop, eyeing the guard below.

"I'm gonna knock him on his ass." Ritsu says calmly.

"What!?" Shieri whispers sharply, turning his attention away from his weapons, only to see his brother leap over the roof.

 _God damn him,_ was the Atlesian boy's thought as he tried to catch his brother from jumping off the edge.

Now as Shieri watches his brother land on top of the thug guarding the front door, he quickly thinks to his HUD to turn on the X-ray vision.

 _I hope no one saw that._ At that Shieri looks down through the floor of the rooftop, and as it turns out, no one saw…especially since, the thugs below seem to be busy doing something.

 _Job comes first I guess…wait a min-_

To the Silver Knight's surprise, he notices two skeletal figures on one side of the shop counter and one on the other. Instantly, Shieri confirmed that the two are the thugs and the other be the shop keeper. He also noticed that one of the thugs appears to be holding something in his hands, which seems to be why the shopkeeper is keeping his hands up in the air.

Shieri frowns.

 _God dammit._ The assassin thought, _I better do something_

At that, Shieri moves towards the edge of the roof to jump; though he froze when the sound of glass breaking broke the silent night.

"Dammit Ritsu!" Shieri says sharply.

The Knight leans over the edge to look down at the sidewalk, only to see his brother slowly get up off the sidewalk.

"God…the hell was that?" Ritsu groans. The muscular boy rubs the back of his head as he moves up into a sitting position.

From where he sits, Ritsu looks straight ahead, only to see the girl he saw outside Juniors club.

 _Damn, who knew this little girl could be that strong._ The Titanist thought

At that, the muscular boy watches the girl rest her weapon on her shoulder and slowly rising into a standing position, just as her weapon unfolds into a large red and black scythe. The girl then performs a series of twirls and spins of her weapon, before stabbing the tip of the curved blade into the cement.

"Okaaay." An unfamiliar voice says calmly. "Get her."

Ritsu looks to his right, just as the rest of Junior's henchmen come storming out the Dust shop.

 _This otta be good._ The Titanist said just as he watches the idiots attack the girl.

The first henchman that ran out of the building first took the first swing at the little girl, only to have her dodge the attack and counter with a flare double-kick to the man's face.

Ritsu barely had enough time to duck under the man that flew overhead, back into the Dust shop through the window.

 _Damn this girl has some power_ , the boy thought.

Atop the roof of the Dust shop, Shieri watches the girl that he and his brother were assigned to guard—and evaluate, move onto the offensive tactics.

From this point on out, the girl in the red hood performs a series of maneuvers at high speeds which included a series of flips; spins to dodge bullets, and heavy swings with her scythe to the rest of the henchmen. The Atlesian boy also notices flashes—followed up by gunfire sounds—that seem to come from the top of the girl's weapon. He again, also notices that one henchman tried shooting her but ultimately failed.

 _She's got a sniper and a scythe,_ Shieri thought, _that's a good combo for her._

Intrigued by her weapon design, the Atlesian boy continues to focus on the girl's weapon rather than her skills with it, to see if there are any other instruments built into it.

 _That design is unique, but the baseline of it, is very familiar. It has to be he-_

A familiar, though unpleasant, voice breaks the Silver Knight's reverie, forcing him to look down at the sidewalk, where the infamous thief stands. And where an unconscious henchman lies next to him.

"You were worth every cent," Roman says, sounding displeased. "Truly you were."

The thief removes the cigar from his mouth. "Well Red," the red-haired man says, "I think we can all say that this has been an eventful evening…" At that the man stomps out his cigar with the bottom of his cane.

"And as much as I'd love to stick around," the thief aims his cane at the girl "I'm afraid this-" the bottom of the cane opens "-is where we part ways."

At that, a ball of explosive Dust—followed by the sound of a roman candle screaming—comes from the tip of the nefarious criminal's cane.

* * *

 _NO!_

Wide-eyed, Shieri puts on his mask that covers the lower half of his face and then drops from the rooftop. When he lands, the Atlesian boy makes the motion to leap after Roman Torchwick, though a strong hand—almost painfully—grips the boys shoulder, stopping him completely

"WHY ARE YOU-" Shieri growls.

"She's got it under control. Just watch." Ritsu says nonchalantly.

Just as Ritsu said this, both boys turn their attention to the girl, in time to see her leap into their air just as the Dust ball impacts the ground, and explode, creating a small crater on the pavement.

Shieri raises an eyebrow, "Her reaction time is good."

Ritsu nods in response.

Although the two brothers were too busy being impressed with the girl's excellent reaction time, they were completely oblivious to that fact that, when she landed in front of them, Roman Torchwick wasn't where he was standing before.

With a quick glance at their surroundings, the two brothers and the Red-hooded girl finally catch a glimpse of the Infamous Thief reaching the top of a fire-exit ladder on the side of a building.

For a moment, the red-hooded girl looks to the Titanist and the Silver Knight, with a determined stared.

"Is it okay if I go after him?" She asks. Her body still tense and ready for action.

In response, Shieri nods while his brother gives the girl a thumbs up, with a winsome smile.

In an instant, the young girl dashes at blinding speed towards the building before firing her weapon at the ground to give herself a giant jump boost.

Both brothers watch the girl disappear at the top of the roof of the building. Just as the girl moves out of sight, Ritsu—the impulsive boy he is—runs in her direction before his twin brother could stop.

"Wait! Where're you going!?" Shieri shouts.

"To do my job!" The muscular boy shouts, before leaping into the air and disappearing atop the same roof as the girl.

The Silver Knight curses under breath. _Are Titans always this impulsive?_

On top of the roof near the almost-ransacked Dust shop, the infamous thief, Roman Torchwick makes a run for the other end of the roof, until the voice of the Red-hooded girl stopped him in place.

"Hey!" the young girl shouts.

Irritated the thief mutters under his breath, "persistent."

At that both twin brothers have already made it atop of the building and stood a good distance away from the girl. At the same time though, the sound of a drop-ship's engines fills night

Hovering in front of the master thief, is a drop-ship that was mysteriously hiding in plain sight.

Ritsu turns to his brother with a puzzled looked on his face, only to receive shrug in response to the unspoken question that hovers between the two.

The thief uses the three kids sudden surprise as an opportunity to climb into the side of the drop-ship with ease. Once inside the drop-ship, the thief turns around with a Dust crystal in his hand and looks at the kids…particularly the Red-hooded girl.

"End of the line Red." Roman says happily. At that the man tosses red Dust crystal at the girl.

At the moment the crystal landed between the girl's feet, Roman fires a shot from his cane-weapon at the girl, making contact with the crystal and causing an explosion, three times the size of his original shot from earlier.

"Woohoohoo!" the thief shouts into the night.

Though the moment of glory for the man lasted a short while when he realized that girl did not explode like he knew she would have. Instead, the only thing that kept the girl from exploding was the fact that the Ritsu blocked the attack with his hand, after he had already kicked the Dust crystal away from the two of them.

At that some moment, Shieri summoned his wings and took to the air, firing a barrage of pure Dust bullets from above, at the drop-ship, causing the whole thing to shake as if it were caught in a rough gale-wind storm.

* * *

In the moment before Shieri took to the skies, the thief caught a glimpse of the Atlesian boy's mechanical wings, causing the man to curse under his breath.

Now once the shakes started, the thief managed to maintain his bearings as he made his move towards the cockpit. Once inside the thief looks to the pilot, who's a young girl with black wavy-hair; wearing a long-sleeved red dress with yellow detail designs, dark gray heavy high-heels and a red jeweled anklet. Even though the girl is pre-occupied with keeping the ship steady, the words that the thief say to her would have caused the whole thing to crash if she wasn't already prepared for the battle that is to come.

"We've got the Silver Knight overhead!" the thief exclaims.

At that, the girl quickly gets up out of the pilot's seat and hurriedly makes her way to the side-hatch of the drop-ship. And at the same time, Roman makes a grab the joystick to keep the ship balanced.

Once at the side hatch, the girl in the red dress looks down at Ritsu and the Red-hooded girl.

From where he stands, the Titanist gently pushes the young girl behind him further away.

"Check this out." The muscular boy says.

With enough space between him and the girl, Ritsu widens his stance and closes his hands into tight fists, as he curls his arms at his sides. In this stance the Titanist builds up his aura into his hands, encasing them in raw power, which transformed them into black, rocky-textured hands; with thick red-veins showing on the surface of the newly-found skin.

"Woooah…"

The Red-hooded girl gawks in awe as the Titanist's aura glowed blood-red as he performed one-two jabs at the air and ended the attack with a double jab. Such devastating power that built-up inside the muscular boy's hands, have caused his attacks to send precise gusts of wind, like missiles, at the drop-ship.

At the same time the Titanist made his attack, the girl standing in the opening of the drop-ship opens her palms out towards the air and fires beams from her hands, obliterating the gusts of wind with perfect ease.

 _What the!?_ The Titanist thought, feeling shocked. _No one has ever countered my attacks before_.

"You wanna try that again!?" Ritsu shouts, almost angrily.

At that, the girl—who makes no remark to the boy's question—makes a motion with her hands, and in almost the same instant, the area of the roof under the Titanist and the young girl's feet lights up like a volcano, ready to explode.

Shieri abruptly stops his attack when he notices the ground light up.

Wide eyed, the Atlesian shouts "No!" before flying at the speed of sound, though the shockwave of the explosion stopped him still, causing him to cover his face from the debris.

Shieri removes his arm from his face and scans the top of the roof frantically for his brother and the girl they were sent to watch over.

"Ritsu!" Shieri shouts.

From where he hovers in mid-air, the sound of the drop-ship's engines blaring—meaning it's going to take off—grabs his attention. In the same moment, Shieri instantly transforms his body into his full "Silver Knight" form, and transforms his weapons into his usual arm-blade. Though, this time the weapon doesn't have a blade, instead it has a tri-barrel.

Shieri takes his weapon and aims it at the ship—though more specifically, the girl inside the open-hatch.

The assassin's face contorts in rage, though the only thing that gives away the emotion he feels, is the upper part of his face, since the lower half is covered by a metallic mask.

"GET LOST!" Shieri shouts in fury, firing three huge orange-colored concentrated beam from his weapon.

As the beams make their way to the ship, two of the beams miss but rock the ship violently, almost causing the girl to stumble. Although, once she maintained her bearings once again, she crosses her arms together and then drops them at her side, causing a wave of pure aura energy to wave out, negating the last beam.

In the moment the girl in the red dress negated Shieri's tri-beam attack, the thief looks out the side of the large cockpit window and notices that the Silver Knight has stopped attacking them. Assuming that the boy isn't going to attack any further, he uses this opportunity to switch the position of the engines from _hover-mode_ to escape the area at full speed.

"Damn her." The Atlesian says tiringly, as he watches the drop-ship speeds out of site.

Shieri lowers his weapon as the feeling of exhaustion takes over, slightly. At the same time, his Sylvanite armor and his tri-shot cannon dissipate. The boy then looks down at his hand as he makes a clenched fist.

"If I only I was faster…" The Atlesian boy doesn't even bother saying the last part of the sentence.

"Way to go stupid!" a familiar voice shouts.

Before Shieri could turn around and see that his muscular brother is still alive, Ritsu smacks him in the back of the head. Though not hard enough to knock him unconscious.

"Damn, that hurt." Shieri says through gritted teeth. He grimaces in pain when he rubs the back of his own head.

"It should, you idiot," Ritsu replies, feigning disappointment in his twin brother. "You could've kept on fighting and we could've stopped them. Instead you acted like an idiot, and got all bent outta shape cause' of a tiny explosion."

The Atlesian boy gives his brother a blank stare.

"I could've killed them if I had a partner who wasn't so careless and actually cared of the safety of those around." Shieri folds his arms across his chest, "You're useless as a huntsman, let alone a Titan." He says, ever-so calmly.

Irritated, Ritsu throws his hands up in the air. "What, and you being Atlas's pet knight-assassin makes you any better than me."

At this point, the muscular twin brother has made his way the Silver Knight, leaving only a foot of space between the two.

"If we weren't doing this for sakes our kind," Ritsu pokes his brother shoulder, "I'd beat you down, just to show you how powerful we Titans still are."

As the two brothers continue to argue, the Red-hooded girl was only paying half attention to their conversation, though she perked up when she heard the word _huntsman_.

"Wait," the girl says as she runs up to the twins with excitement. "You two are huntsman!?"

Red-hooded girl almost gasps a breath when she spoke again, as she holds her hands up in front of her chest.

"Can I have your autographs!?"

At that the two just stare at the girl in disbelief, completely disregarding the argument they just had only seconds ago.

* * *

 **In a room, sometime that same night, at Beacon academy.**

"I hope you realize," Glynda paces around the young red-hooded girl, who sits at a table in the middle of the room. "that your actions tonight will not be taken lightly, young lady."

"You put yourself and others in great danger." The huntress adds.

"They started it!" the young girl exclaims.

At that Glynda stops her pacing and stands in front of the girl. She then glares at the two boys who stand at the opposite end of the room. Both of them looking seemingly guilty for reasons that the two boys and her know only.

Before the young girl could turn her head to look in the same direction, the sound of huntress clearing her throat grabs her attention.

Glynda looks down at her tablet for a moment. "If it were up to me," the huntress turns to the young girl, "I'd give you a pat on the back. And a slap on the wrist." At that last part, the women slams her riding-crop weapon on the table, dangerously close the young girl's hands. Though the girl—who's smile disappeared—managed to remove her hands from the table in time to avoid getting hit.

"But—" Glynda removes her riding-crop from the table "—someone would like to meet you."

Now as if on cue, the headmaster—Professor Ozpin—enters the room, wearing his usual green three-piece suit attire, with a cross sewed on the front of his scarf collar and with his walking cane.

Though to everyone's surprise—minus Glynda's—the headmaster enters the room, with a pile of cookies on a plate in one hand and a coffee mug in the other.

"Ruby Rose" the headmaster says calmly.

Ozpin places the plate of cookies on the table, and leans in to get a better look of the girl.

"You have…silver eyes." Ozpin says carefully, before moving away from the table.

Feeling a little uncomfortable and slightly confused, "Uh-h um…" was the only response that Ruby could give.

* * *

In the back of the room, the Titanist and the Silver Knight stand quietly, and patiently, waiting for the Beacon headmaster to acknowledge them as he continues to converse with the girl.

When the headmaster mentioned Ruby's eye color, Shieri froze in place momentarily—though discretely so as to not attract attention—as thoughts rushed into his mind. _Wait a min—she has silver eyes!?_ _She can't be…there's only one person who had those colored eyes. She couldn't have…_

At that final thought, Shieri carefully looked over at Ruby and scanned her with his HUD. He reads and mentally confirms the suspicions that he had about the girl's personal life.

"Hey," Ritsu says elbowing his brother to get his attention.

The Atlesian boy finishes up the last of his search on the red-hooded girl before turning his head to face his brother.

"What?" Shieri says.

"I know that look." Ritsu replies.

"What look?"

"That look you get when something disturbs you somewhat."

"Now there's a look?"

"Don't be stupid…what's up brother?"

Shieri sighs. "This girl, Ruby Rose. She has silver eyes."

"So? Why's that a big deal?" Ritsu asks sounding irritated.

The Atlesian assassin looks at his brother carefully, only to notice that the muscular boy's irritation comes from his own personal boredom.

"Because there was only one person I knew during my training back in Mantle that had those colored eyes." Shieri says discomfortingly.

"Who?" Ritsu asks, feigning his curiosity.

 _Now he's interested._ Shieri thought, feeling irritated.

"Her name was Su-"

Shieri never got to finish his response because the sound of the headmaster clearing his throat grabs the attention of both twins.

While making eye contact with the Ozpin, the twins ignore the stares that they're getting from a Ruby and an impatient Glynda.

"Yes sir?" Shieri says, sounding like his old-self.

"Would you kindly escort Mrs. Rose back to her home?" Ozpin asks as he stands up from his chair. "She needs to prepare her things, for the first day of the Entrance Exams."

"It would be my pleasure."

At that, Shieri's old courtesy-instincts kick in, and he bows to the head master. Though he slightly turned his head and averted his eyes to his brother when he heard him whisper "kiss ass."

The headmaster looks to the Titanist.

Ritsu sighs while rolling his eyes before responding.

"Yeah, yeah, I volunteer as tribute."

"Very well then. I'll leave you three to yourselves." Ozpin says as he and his assistant Huntress exit the room, leaving the door open.

Once the two adults left, Ruby—who watched the two leave—explodes in excitement.

"I GET TO GO TO BEACON!" Ruby shouts.

"Damn, I've never seen anyone that excited about anything before." Ritsu says with a wide-eyed—and almost shocked—expression.

"Yeah, neither have I." Shieri says, sharing the same look and feelings.

Ruby continues to her ecstatic _jumping-around_ until she heard the voices of the twin brothers, which pulled the red-hooded girl out of her reverie, causing her to recompose herself as she turns to them.

"I mean uh…" Ruby giggles nervously. "yay, beacon."

Under his mask, Shieri couldn't help but smile. _What I'd give to be in her shoes right now…_

"Well, I'm outta here." Ritsu says as he beelines for the door.

"Ritsu, where do you think you're going?"

"To bed, that's where."

Before Shieri could protest, his brother had already left the room and disappeared down the hall.

The Atlesian quietly growls. "Damn him."

"Well, uh…I guess that just leaves us two." Ruby says gawking at the Silver Knight.

Shieri sighs, "It does doesn't it?"

At that, the Atlesian boy gestures a hand, "Come one. Let's get you home," he says. And the red-hooded girl follows suit behind and leaves the room.

* * *

For a while, Shieri and the soon-to-be-huntress, Ruby, have been walking in silence. Ever since they left the dark room that they were in earlier, and while they have been walking down the large pathway that leads to Beacon's airship docking platforms. Though, the young red-hooded girl breaks the silence once the two made their way pass the statue of a two hunters, and a conquered Beowulf.

"Sooo…" Ruby starts. "How long have you and your twin been huntsmen?"

Shieri looks to the girl. "You noticed huh?"

"What. That you're a twin, and you're both huntsmen."

"Yes…" Shieri halts his pace momentarily, making the girl stop as well. Ruby watches Shieri intensely as he chooses his words carefully. He continues to keep the same cold expression, so as to not be betrayed by his emotions.

"Except I'm actually a quadruplet, and neither of us are actual huntsmen…Yet, that is."

Ruby's jaw drops for second as she takes in this new information.

"Woah, that's awesome! Hey, where the other two that I haven't met yet?"

"I would assume they're sleeping…like we should be soon."

At that the two start walking again.

"Ooh…Wait, if you and your brothers are not huntsmen, then how do you and your big buffy brother know the Beacon headmaster?"

Shieri shrugs. This gesture was the only one that Ruby saw, other than the straight posture when he was addressed by the Beacon headmaster.

"Let's just say that we were handpicked just like you."

Ruby's face flushes. "That's cool! Does he do that often?"

Shieri chuckles a bit. "I would assume not as often as you think he would."

By this time, Shieri and Ruby had already made it to the platforms, though once they got there, not a single drop-ship was in sight to come pick them up.

Ruby gazes out into the moonlit sky in all directions, and focuses on her listening skills, for any sign of a drop-ship. But still nothing.

"Hey-uh, how am I supposed to get home? I don't see a ship anywhere."

Shieri smiles a wryly smile. "If you don't mind, I have an idea than might interest you?"

"Like what?" Ruby asks, looking quite puzzled.

As if on cue, Shieri summons his mech-wings.

"Have you ever flown before?"

The sight of the Silver Knight's wings struck Ruby in awe, as she gawks. "Ooh. Well…not like that anyway."

Shieri moves to stand behind Ruby and then wraps his arms around her waist. Completely shocking the girl.

"You don't mind do you?"

"I-uh…uh-h"

Ruby couldn't finish since she started to blush, as the Atlesian boy tightened his grip around the girl's waist and took flight.

* * *

 **Somewhere over the island called Patch.**

"There!" Ruby shouts, over the sound of the wind muffling her ears.

Even without the use of his HUD—with which he is letting Ruby use momentarily—he was able to see where she was pointing to. Which turned out to be a small neighborhood that's illuminated only by each houses porch light.

As it turns out though. Ruby points to a house that's at the edge of the neighborhood, closer to the body of water, where—even in the dark—the Atlesian boy could see small beach behind the house.

While still carrying the young girl, Shieri halts in mid-air and hovers over the house.

Even in the dark, the Atlesian boy could tell that the architecture design of the house isn't the same as most of the neighboring houses. In fact, the origin of the design doesn't appear to be from Vale. Instead this house is built with a similar design to the villagers who live southeast, outside of the kingdom of Mistral.

 _Her family has great taste,_ Shieri thought.

Another thought, occurred to Shieri. "Where would you want me to drop you off?"

Ruby ponders on the question for several heartbeats before answering the boy.

"My bedroom window." Ruby says. "It's unlocked. Plus, I don't wanna wake up my sis, by going in through the front door."

"Right."

At that Shieri slowly descends to the back of the house, where Ruby points out which window is hers.

"She'd freak out if she knew I was out this late…and worse with a boy." Ruby adds.

Shieri snorts. "Sounds like your sister is very protective of you."

"Yeah, I guess you could say that. My dad is too."

"Where is your father? If you don't mind me asking."

While hovering by the window, Ruby reaches out and pushes half the window to the side—and, with the help of her _personal Carrier_ , manages to climb in silently.

At this point the young girl watches Shieri hover outside the window, like an angel of some-sort.

"He's away on a mission somewhere near Mistral." Ruby says.

"He's a huntsman." Shieri says.

Ruby notices that what the boy said, was more of a confirmation than a question.

"Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Let's just say that Ozpin spoke highly of your father and his old team, when he offered my brothers and I, a spot at Beacon Academy."

"That's awesome!" Ruby starts, but then shrinks when she didn't realize how loud she just became. "uh-oops."

Shieri pulls down his mask—revealing a smirk on his face—and tugs on it to make a gesture. "That's why I wear one of these."

"Yeah, right…"

Ruby was about to say something else but then the sound of moving feet outside her bedroom door, caught her attention.

"Uh-oh, Yang is coming." Ruby whispers almost panic-like.

Shieri nods. "Right. I should go."

Before the Silver Knight took off into the night, he turns back to Ruby one more time.

"I'll see you on the first day."

Keeping quiet, Ruby's only reply was a thumbs-up and a goodbye wave.

On cue, Shieri hovers out of sight and then takes off almost at the speed of sound. The only thing left in his presence was a gust of wind that died down to slow cool breeze.

From her window, Ruby watches the Atlesian boy fly away into the moonlit sky.

"Flying is so cool." Ruby whispers in awe.

The sound of her bedroom door opening pulls the young girl out of her reverie, making her turn to the girl standing in the door way.

"Ruby…" The girl yawns. "When did you get back?"

The young girl chooses her words carefully as she notices her sister is wearing a yellow sleeveless-top, with a burning heart design, and black short shorts. Her sister's usual pajama attire.

"oh, Yang…I just got back now." Ruby says, acting nonchalant. Though on the inside, her heart races faster than her semblance ever could.

Yang yawns again. "Just now?"

The young girl nods.

Ruby's older sister looks to her clock that sits on the shelf above her bed.

"It's almost midnight," Yang says, "I know you were going a dust shop in town, but were you really there this whole time?"

"Uh. Yeah…I kinda lost track of time." Ruby says nervously.

"Uh-huh…"

At this point, Ruby's older sister, Yang, stares at her intently as she catches a glimpse of something shining green over her eye.

The young girl was going to ask her sister why the sudden look, but Yang spoke up first.

"So what's his name?"

"Wait-uh, w-who, h-h-how did you-" Ruby stutters, her face burning red.

Yang points to her own eye.

"The glowing monocle." She says.

For a moment Ruby froze in place because she completely forgot about the HUD she borrowed from Shieri, to navigate her way home.

"Oh…that," Ruby starts. "Well about that…"

At that very moment, Ruby's night went from awesome, to not-so-awesome.


	5. Chapter 5

**CH5: A Rigorous Night.**

"Why do we have to pretend to be like normal people?" Ritsu exclaims.

Instead of watching the amazing view of the large island, called Patch, passing by; the muscular boy turns away from the giant window, only to lean back against it. With his hands behind his head.

All three of the Titanist's brothers regard him in silence.

"He's right though." Kluá says, as he turns to Shieri. "If we were already accepted and given a room at Beacon Academy…and been given second-year student privileges. What's the point of us even being enrolled with the first year students?"

From their little corner in the observation deck of the large transport ship, Shieri gazes out into the crowd of first year students, making sure that no one is listening in on their conversation.

 _This would have been much easier,_ Shieri thought. _If I still had my HUD monocle._

For a moment Shieri looks to all three of his brothers, and remembers that prior to their agreement a few days before they "shipped out."

Shieri says, "It's because the Headmaster wants our presents to be known, in a much formal way."

"I don't get it." Kluá frowns.

Shieri finally looks to his Elementist brother, though he disregards the comment. He also notices that today the Mistralian boy wears: a solid-black muscle shirt with a bronze-colored shoulder guard on the right; a dark-green sash that's also part of his knee-length Fighter's coat-tail, which splits into three sections in the back; a pair of black pants with a dark-green belt tucked into knee-high bronze-colored metallic boots; a pair of bronze-colored fingerless-gauntlets, and on the boy's head, a dark-green bandana, with the Haven academy symbol in white coloring on the front.

The Atlesian boy says nothing, and goes back to gazing out into the crowd.

Unbeknownst to the Atlesian assassin, Fang watches his brother carefully from where he sits on the floor next to where Ritsu stands.

The Faunus boy takes in the fact that the _retired Atlesian assassin_ is wearing a black hoodless military gothic calvary trench jacket, with silver stripes down the sleeves, the side, the front, and with an Atlas academy symbol on the back. He also wears a black and silver striped half mask, draped around his neck, like a scarf. He then wears a pair of silver fingerless-gauntlets; a pair black commando pants, with a thick silver band detail on one leg, tucked into black commando boots.

As the _retired White-Fang assassin_ turns away from his Atlesian brother to doze off into space, the same thoughts that he kept pondering over—ever since he was convinced as to why he should continue down this path that he is on now by Beacon academy's headmaster—have been coming back to him.

 _I don't understand why I stay here with them,_ Fang thinks. _This is not my fight…yet what the headmaster said about my brothers, the Maidens…and me. I feel as though I must, that I—_

Fang never got to finish his thought because his obnoxious Titanist brother.

"Tell me again why we're doing this?" Ritsu speaks aloud, feeling all the senses of boredom.

Fang sighs. "Did you not listen, or do you not even care?"

Kluá, who was only paying half-attention to Ritsu, gawked at his Faunus brother—who hasn't spoken since they learned who—and what—they are.

At the same time though, Kluá takes in what his Faunus brother wears as his signature outfit for their entire stay at the academy.

The Faunus brother wears a tight black sleeveless shirt that has sections of metal plates over his back, chest and abs woven into the shirt, and metal rings sewed into the shirt over his shoulders that replaces the sleeves. Fang then also wears similar commando pants and boots as his brother, Shieri, though without any extra detail. He also still wears the same vambraces, ninja-muffler scarf, and the dark-violet coat-tail.

"So now the lone-dog speaks." Ritsu says mockingly.

Fang turns to the Titanist though Kluá spoke up before he could.

"He's a wolf Faunus, Ritsu. Don't be racist."

"I'm not being racist. I'm just-"

"Enough you two. We're here."

At this point, Kluá, Fang, and Ritsu all turn to their Atlesian brother who now gazes out the giant window, watching the enormous campus and buildings of Beacon Academy coming closer with every second that passes.

"So this is what Beacon looks like when you're a new student." Kluá says in awe.

The Elementist moves pass his two brothers to stand next to his third brother, Shieri.

"Out of the four kingdom's greatest academies. Beacon has a better view." Shieri admits.

"Well…" Kluá starts "actually…never mind. You're right."

Both the Atlesian and the Elementist look to one another for a moment, though no words are exchanged. Instead, only a smirk from Shieri and a grin from Kluá are exchanged between the two.

* * *

"—the robbery was led by nefarious criminal, Roman Torchwick…"

Down at the opposite end of the observation deck, from where the four brothers are poised—waiting for the ship to land, the sound of a holo-screen attracts their attention.

Ritsu points out to the holo-TV. "Hey it's that guy you let get away, Shi."

Shieri turns to his muscular brother as the four make their way to the screen.

"As I recall, I was not alone in that failed attempt to capture the thief."

"Yeeaah…but he wasn't my concern."

At that Ritsu points to two girls who stand at a good hundred feet away from them.

"But those sexy sisters are."

When the other three brothers looked to see who Ritsu was pointing at, only Kluá and Shieri realized the two girls were Ruby Rose, and her older sister Yang Xiao Long.

"Hey, those are the girls we met at Junior's club." Kluá says. "Let's go say hi."

Ritsu grins. "Way ahead of you brother."

Shieri shakes his head in disbelief, while Fang mutters something about Ritsu and Kluá being more like Faunus dogs, as the two walk away.

* * *

"Hey, Ruby!"

Ruby Rose jumped a little when she heard the familiar voice.

The young girl turns her attention away from the large monitor to see one of the boys that she met the same night she was accepted into Beacon Academy.

Yang looks at her younger sister with look of disbelief for a brief moment, as the Titanist and the Elementist stop in front of them.

The Blonde-haired girl looks to both boys with a sense of recognition.

"Hey, you're the guys I saw at Junior's club, about a week ago."

Ritsu grins. "What's up, Goldilocks…names Ritsu." The muscular boy looks to Ruby next. "What's up, Ruby."

"Hey, you're that guy who left me with Shieri that night, about a week ago too."

The Titanist puts his hands behind his head, "Yeah…I was tired and I had a long day before that night, so I needed to get some shut-eye."

Ruby giggles almost nervously. "Yeah, me too."

At that Yang glares at her younger sister for a moment before turning her attention to the twins.

Although she's met them before for brief moments at Junior's nightclub, Yang sees that the two boys are wearing different outfits than what they wore before, at the nightclub. Yet, only the Titanist's outfit seems to grab her attention the most, especially since it complements the boy's physique and his tattoos.

 _This guy is built perfectly,_ the blonde-haired girl thought, _and those tattoos…he can't be from Vale…Vacuo, maybe._

The muscular boy wears: an open black and red two-tone sleeveless vest with gold trims, and wears no undershirt, to show off his chiseled abs and large chest. He also wears a pair of black Eastern Mistralian-style shorts that tighten just below the knee, with a white-threaded dragon detail on his right leg, and four small pouches (two on each outer-thigh); with a coat-tail that splits at the middle, and that has the same dragon detail on the back. Then for shoes, Ritsu wears a pair of color matching shoes connected to a pair of shin guards.

Now as far as accessories go, Ritsu wears a pair of elbow-length fingerless-armbraces with a thick bar-plating covering the knuckles; then two armbands—one with the Shade academy symbol and the other with an unknown symbol—and a headband with a metal plating on the front. Yang then also notices two dust canisters clipped on the sides of the muscular boy's waistband.

"So…how do you guys know my sister?" Yang asks .

She eyes both boys carefully. Though she's looks at the Titanist the most.

 _There's seriously no way a guy can get that big, and yet still look this good…and that hair—_

Out of the two boys, only Kluá seems to be the nervous one, when Yang asked that question.

"I-uh This is actually the first time I'm meeting her." The Elementist says, interrupting the blonde girl's thoughts.

The Elementist avoids eye-contact with the Blonde-haired girl, but tries to with Ruby. With which ultimately failed, since the red-hooded girl is completely oblivious to Kluá's signs of attraction towards her.

Ritsu stands closer to his brother and elbows him.

"O-oh… and I'm Kluá"

Ritsu grins again as he folds his arms across his chest, as he looks to Yang, whose eyes are completely focused on him. He winks at her.

"I was the one that saved your sis' that night Shieri dropped her off at home." He said.

For a quick second, Yang's facial expression, which earlier was flushed red for being caught staring, represented somewhat of a shocked look, though she looked to her sister, the same way a mother looks at their daughter when the child gets caught for doing something bad.

"So you _were_ with a boy last night." Yang says, putting emphasis on the word _were_. Thus, confirming her suspicions of her younger sister.

"It wasn't a date, Yang!" Ruby cries. "He was just dropping me off at home, after Ozpin said I could come to Beacon…"

"Besides, he's a Huntsman like these two are." The young girl adds.

"Uh-huh…" Yang says, in disbelief. "I'll believe it when I meet Romeo."

At that, Kluá leans towards Ritsu to whisper in his ear. "Sounds like Shieri's gonna get in trouble. Big time, with her."

Ritsu snorts, "I wouldn't doubt it."

In the moment that Kluá was speaking to his muscular brother, Shieri and Fang had made their way to them.

"You two sure know how to make a scene." Shieri says calmly and coldly.

"At least it was entertaining from the distance." Fang adds, sharing the same tone of voice. Yet the Faunus boy could not keep from smiling a small smile.

Ritsu looks to his Faunus brother. "Since when did you have a sense of humor, Fang?"

"Since I learned that one of my brothers would be terrible at humoring beautiful mistresses." Fang retorts.

At that Ritsu just rolls his eyes.

"Whatever you say, butt-sniffer."

Kluá looks to the Titanist with a side-ways glance.

"Dude, enough with the racism, alright?"

Ritsu shrugs. "I don't see what the big deal is."

"The big deal is—"

Before the Mistralian boy could finish, Shieri puts a hand up as a gesture to silence the conversation, which ended up working.

"That's enough…" Shieri puts his hand down, "This bickering can wait 'til we're away from prying eyes." As he said this, the Atlesian boy stared at the two sisters, his gaze careful.

Ritsu scoffs. "Whatever."

In the moment that the argument was halted by the well-armed boy, Yang noticed that the four boys are twins.

 _Wait, not twins,_ the blonde girl thought. _They're quadruplets…now that's awesome._

She also noticed that each brother has something unique about them, such as their style of clothing, and their weapons of choice—and in Ritsu's and Fang's case; the Titanist's muscle mass, and the Faunus boy's eyes.

"Oh, Shieri." Ruby says, she pulls something out of her little pouch. "here's your hi-tech monocle. You forgot it that night you dropped me off at home."

"Ah, thank you." The Atlesian boy takes a few steps forward and reaches out with a hand to grab his device from the young girl.

Yang watches the well-armed Atlesian boy with intent, as he takes the monocle she caught her sister with, that one night.

 _This has to be Romeo,_ the blonde girl thought. _I got'cha now._

"So," Yang starts moving closer to Shieri. She folds her arms across her chest, "You're the other guy who saved my sis, and then brought her home."

As Yang spoke, Shieri took the time to put on his HUD Monocle, letting the device synchronize with his brain. Once the synchronization was complete, the boy turned his attention back to the blonde-haired girl. Though this time, the boy discreetly scans the girl with the device.

 _Interesting_ , Shieri thought.

The Atlesian boy rereads the information once more before dismissing it all. He then chooses his words carefully.

Unbeknownst to Shieri, the blonde-haired girl discreetly noticed things appearing, disappearing, and then stopping all together in the boy's monocle.

 _Was he just checking me out?_ Yang thought. Yet, she dismisses the thought, since she didn't have the proof to think otherwise.

"The first part of your observation is incorrect," Shieri says cautiously. "But the last part is correct," he adds.

 _He sounds like a soldier._ Yang thought, _He's gotta be from Atlas._

"So Shieri," Ruby says, seeing that her sister gazes intently at the Atlesian boy.

Jealousy slowly creeps into the young girl's mind as she speaks to the boy that flew her home.

"Other than Kluá, is that Faunus boy your other brother too." Ruby adds.

Shieri nods, "Yes, he is."

Everyone's eyes are on Fang now, though his eyes are focused on something else. Which happens to be the holo-screen, once again.

"Yo. Fang. Say hello." Kluá says, being completely oblivious to what his Faunus brother is watching on the holo-screen.

* * *

If anyone was paying attention, they would have noticed that the current news on the screen now has to do with the Faunus organization, the White Fang.

Seeing the White Fang being publicized on screens, makes the Faunus boy want to laugh a little on the inside.

 _If only Humans knew the truth of what I do for my people._ Fang thinks, _such a reminder of how the White Fang used to be peaceful would, by the means, be a declaration of war once again._

Just as Fang finished his dark thought, the holo-screen turned off and a holo-image of Glynda Goodwitch, the Beacon headmaster's assistant, appears.

"Look." Fang utters, without diverting his eyes.

At that moment, everyone turned their attention to the holo-image of the huntress. Three out of the four brothers moved to stand by the sisters, so they could all see the holo-image better.

 _Right on cue,_ Shieri thought.

"Hello and welcome to Beacon…" Glynda says.

"Who's that?" Yang asks.

"My name is Ms. Glynda Goodwitch…" the huntress continues.

At that moment, standing next to Ruby on her left side, Shieri and the young girl quickly glance at Yang as she makes a response to her already answered question.

"You are among a privileged few, who've received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy…Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future huntsman and huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it—"

Ritsu snorts and mumbles something too quiet for everyone to hear except Fang to hear. Though instead of arguing with the muscular boy, Fang continues to listen to the huntress's speech.

"—you have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task…and now it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge, and training, to protect our world."

Once Glynda finished her speech, the image of the huntress fades away.

"I should've known she was gonna talk everyone's ear off." Ritsu says, feeling irritated by the idea that he had to go through the entire speech.

Kluá looks to his muscular brother as he speaks to him. "Just chill Ritsu. She does this every year for all the new students."

"I could care less about the speech…" the Titanist says, "right now I just wanna fight some Grimm or other students."

"Sheesh, could you be anymore…"

As another argument starts up again between the Titanist and the Elementist, Yang looks to her left and glances up at Shieri.

"Do those two always argue like this?" the Blonde-haired girl asks.

Shieri sighs and folds his arms across his chest. A smirk appears on the Atlesian assassin's face, "I'm afraid it's a common occurrence these days."

Yang opens her mouth to say something else, but the sound and movement of her little sister grabs her attention.

"Woah…" Ruby gasps in awe. "You can see Signal from up here."

As the young red-hooded girl gazes down the city, her sister joins at the large window.

"Looks like home isn't that far away." The young girl adds, her voice sounding something close to sadness.

Noticing the change of the young girl's voice, Yang puts a hand on her sister's shoulder.

"Beacon's our home." The older sister says, comforting her younger sister.

* * *

Little did the two sisters know, the sound of Ruby's voice when she said home was not far away, actually had an impact on the four brothers that they did not realize would. Especially now, after what the Beacon headmaster—Ozpin—said to the four, when they came together to his office.

Ritsu sighs. "Now that we're here, where do we go?"

Shieri, who is currently occupied with watching Ruby and Yang wave goodbye as they make their way to exit the ship, wasn't paying any attention to his muscular brother, until Kluá nudged his arm.

"Come on, Knight-in-shining armor," Kluá says jokingly. "Where to next?"

At that Shieri turns his gaze to his elemental brother, whose eyes still show the after effects of sadness, from Ruby's words. Though as calmly as the Atlesian boy was to look at his brother, he looked away—towards the exit.

"Ozpin wants to meet us at the auditorium, before he makes his announcement to the first-year students."

Once the Atlesian boy said this, he started walking towards the exit just as the last of the new students started filtering out. Kluá, Ritsu, and Fang follow suit.

Ritsu threw his hands up in the air as he's walking. "God, just what we need…another speech."

"Calm yourself, Ritsu." Fang says calmly, "After today, the entrance exams will begin…and your reign of Grimm destruction will begin as well."

At that Ritsu, flexes all the muscles in his upper body and then pounds his fists together. Luckily for the Titanist, he did not put too much power his fists, otherwise the shockwave would cracked the Remnant, as well as send the cruise ship and other students flying, like they were just blown away by the strongest wind ever known.

"Good…" Ritsu says with a wryly grin, as the tone of his voice changed. "My fists have been aching to grab something."

A smile creeps up the Elementist's face. "You know, Yang was right there…and you've been non-stop talking about her…You could've grabbed her—"

Right before Kluá could finish his sentence, both Fang and Shieri quickly turn their heads to face their Elemental brother, with glare that spoke far beyond what words could express.

Once he noticed the stares, Kluá immediately put his hands up in a surrendering gesture. At the same time, his heart was beating faster than when he would fight Grimm, or spar with other students at Haven Academy.

"Okay, okay...okay…No need to get all hostile on me." The Elementist says.

Shieri watches his Mistralian brother fold his arms across his chest, and pouts. Though, he knows that his brother is only joking about his body language.

* * *

In a hallway behind the large auditorium room, the four brothers stand around a door that leads into the big room, waiting for the headmaster and the assistant to return to give their final speech to the first-year students.

 ** _Beep-beep beep!_**

Shieri uses his thoughts to answer the incoming call.

"Ironwood, sir."

The Atlesian boy's voice echoes throughout the hallway that's outside the back of the auditorium.

As Shieri spoke, his brothers—Kluá, Ritsu and Fang—turn their gaze to their Atlesian brother, realizing that he's talking to someone on his HUD device.

"Silver Knight. I assume you are in the process of being accustomed well at Beacon Academy." The General says.

The Silver Knight folds his arms across his chest as he looks down at the floor, keeping his focus on the picture of the Atlesian General that appeared on the HUD screen.

"Yes." The Silver Knight says, "Ozpin is about to make his speech, though…he seems distracted."

"I think I may know why…"

"Is it because Huntsman Qrow has not made contact yet."

"I would be careful with what you say in public around those you don't know." Ironwood says cautiously on his end of the call, completely disregarding the Silver Knight's assumptions.

For several heartbeats, Shieri looks to his brothers as they stare at him quietly and intently. Nothing in their body language and their gazes portray anything close to betrayal, for the Atlesian boy.

"My brothers can be trusted…far more than you can, _General._ " Shieri says, his voice terse with anger.

Although the Silver Knight's brothers could not notice the slight change in his voice, the three were at least able to see the muscles in his jaw tighten. But again, the three remain silent as they watch their Atlesian brother continue his discussion, while under emotional distress.

"Silver Knight—"

"It's Shieri Aguno, now." The Atlesian boy says, interrupting the General.

At that, the Atlesian boy cuts contact with the Atlesian General, and removes his HUD monocle from his face and tucks it into one of his utility pouches on his right thigh. Once his device was tucked deep into the pouch, Shieri turns away from his brothers and gazes down the dimly-lit hallway.

Seeing his brother's posture slacken, Fang removes himself from the wall, opposite of his Atlesian brother, and puts a hand on his shoulder.

Kluá and Ritsu then move to stand next to their Faunus brother.

"We may be from opposite sides of the same coin, Shieri…" Fang says, before taking a small breath. "But let me say that you are not the only one who was betrayed by their own superior…

"As I may recall. All four of us were betrayed by someone superior to us."

"Hell yeah we were" Ritsu adds. "That's why I'm gonna kill Narcasa the next time I see him."

For a second, Shieri turned his gaze to his Titanist brother, noticing the controlled rage in his eyes, and the flexed folded arms. Then turns his attention to his other two brothers, noticing the same look in their eyes.

"It's interesting that the four of us feel some need of revenge." Shieri says.

Kluá snorts. "I guess it only makes sense, because our lives that we're living are nothing but lies."

Fang frowns, "We must remember as well, that Ozpin is giving us a chance to start anew."

At that, the Black Fang hears faint footsteps—two of them—down the hall around the corner.

"What's up, Fang?" Ritsu asks, his posture almost battle-ready.

Just as he asked, Ozpin and Glynda turn appear around the corner walking towards the quadruplets. Except the Beacon headmaster still holds the same empty expression that the Silver Knight mentioned before cutting his conversation with the General short.

"Looks like they're ready." Shieri said, as he and his Elementist brother move to meet up with the two hunters.

Ritsu sighs. "Let the games begin, dammit."

* * *

 **In the Headmaster's office at the Kingdom of Atlas.**

On the other end of the line, the General sighs as he pinches the bridge of his nose, before resting his hands on his large desk, and hunching over it.

This action of his, has now become a common occurrence for whenever he feels distressed, frustrated, or even irritated.

For a moment, silence fills the air as the man opens his eyes once more and stares deeply at his desk. As he stares, the lighting in the room reveals his reflection on the table.

Out loud, the General says, "I am sorry, Shieri Huro—I mean _Aguno_ ," the General pauses for a moment as he closes his eyes once again and reopens them.

"I never meant to let this happen to _her_ …" The general continues speaking to his own reflection. "If you truly understood the situation, you would have realized that we could not put you at risk against the enemy…After all, you're the _Silver_ _Knight._ You're needed more than ever since she got hurt."

 ** _Beep!…Beep!..._**

The built-in guest-sensor continues to beep, indicating that there is someone outside the General's office.

For a whole minute, Ironwood recomposes himself and straightens his tie once more before pressing something on his holo-desk to stop the beeping.

"Enter." The General speaks out loud.

The doors to his office make a _hiss_ sound as they open wide, revealing a young woman, who appears to be in her mid-twenties. When the woman enters the room, she walks with an aura of a soldier. Her face blank; her strides purposeful; her hands clenched into fists at her side and her attire neatly cleaned and pressed. Though the girl wears a military uniform, hers is completely different than most officers.

The young woman's outfit composes of a three-piece style suit, though which is also fitted for combat as well. She wears a white blouse under a blue-grayish vest and a long-sleeved coat with a tail that reaches down halfway below her knees; yet the coat is styled with a single clip over the abdomen area and the collar, leaving the chest area open, and the coat-tail open wide for easy walking. Also this coat has hidden dove-tails under the lower-bottom of the coat. The woman then also wears a pair of white tight pants, tucked into gray thigh-high flexible metal boots with three-inch heels

"Winter," Ironwood says, recognizing the woman's snow-white hair and icy-blue eyes, signifying her as the oldest child of the famous Schnee family. As well as one if his most trusted Special Forces agent.

"How goes the progress of our new prototypes?" The General asks.

"Excellent, sir." The woman says as she takes several steps to stand in the middle of the large office. "We should be ready to ship out the prototypes—and additional troops—to Vale, before the Vytal Festival begins this year."

The words _Vytal Festival_ and _Vale_ , being used together has suddenly brought an uneasy feeling to General, causing the man to turn away from the young woman. Leaving the woman, with a puzzled expression.

 _Ozpin…do you realize what you brought upon us?…and now you have indoctrinated the one only person who can stop this madness…now it looks as though I must take matters into my own hands._

"Uh…something the matter, sir?"

The Atlesian general broke free of his reverie at the sound of his agent's voice. As well as not realizing that he had been staring blankly for, a few minutes, out into the distant snowy mountains of the Kingdom of Mantle.

Or which is now the Kingdom of Atlas, especially since the combination of school, military, and government-imperial-indoctrination have been increasingly changing the views of what the citizens should label themselves.

"No, Winter…" The General then puts his hands behind his back. "Thank you for the update. You are dismissed."

"Yes, sir."

Although, she wanted to press the matter further, Winter knew that this is a topic that would not lead anywhere except to frustrate the General. So instead, the white-haired special agent stood straight, with her heels together, and salutes the man.

Winter then turns on her heel to march out the office, though she stopped in mid-step when the sound of the General's voice echoes in the office.

"Schnee." The General says, without turning away from the single giant window.

"Yes. Sir?" Winter asks. Though for some reason, the young woman's heart races as if she just got done with a training exercise.

"When the prototypes are complete, I will give you the honor of escorting them, and the additional troops you mentioned, to Vale."

Using her mental training, Winter hides what small excitement she has of being able to see her little sister, who will be attending Beacon Academy.

"Thank you, sir." The young woman managed say, surprisingly calm.

Just then, the special agent continues her march out of the office, leaving the General to his long reverie once again.

* * *

 **That same night, several hours after the introduction speech in the auditorium, at Beacon Academy.**

Inside the large ball room, every first-year student that was present in the auditorium have now established their own sleeping arrangements, getting ready for the night's end, so they can be ready for the entrance exams that will take place the next day.

The muscular boy, Ritsu, gawks around in amazement as he sees girls: tall, or short; petite, or curvaceous, wander the large ball room getting ready for bed.

"I've never seen so many chicks in one room before." The Titanist says, just as a small group of girls walk pass him, and his brothers.

Two girls in group giggle as they quickly look to the four brothers, and then quickly look away as if they were not noticed.

While sitting on top of their sleeping bags, Ritsu and Kluá both wave and wink at the girls, just as one looked back once more and then giggles again, before turning to whisper her friend.

"I think I'm gonna love being a student here." Ritsu says, watching the group of girls walk further down to the other end of the ball room. He then turns to his Elementist brother.

"Yeah, me too." Kluá says, "The girls here are less formal and stuck up than the ones at Haven Academy."

"Say, how long did you say were at Haven for?" Ritsu asks.

For a minute, Kluá puts a finger on his chin and looks up at the ceiling.

"For a whole year." The Elementist finally says.

"A year? And now they're making restart your first year?"

At that Kluá shrugs. "Yeah," he says, "but it's not big deal. It just means that I get stay as a huntsman-in-training for an extra year."

"You know. Just to make sure these ladies don't get outta place." The Elementist boy adds.

"Ha! Now that's what—" Ritsu high fives his brothers, "—I'm talking about."

 **…**

* * *

Once she was ready for bed, Yang walked back to where she and her sister made their little own personal sleeping arrangements.

When her sister was in sight, the blonde-haired girl plopped down on her side on top of her sleeping bad, where she watches her sister write something on a piece of paper.

"It's like a big slumber party!" Yang says.

"I don't think dad would approve of all the boys, though." Ruby says, still focusing on her letter.

"I know I do."

At that Yang makes a _purring_ sound, like a cat, while checking out three boys. Two out of the three boys, horse-play while the third flexes an arm for her.

Though in the same instant that the blond-haired girl notices these boys, Juane—a boy Ruby met during several hours ago—sees her staring and stops mid-step.

Yang then realizes that the Juane guy is wearing a one-piece bunny pajama suit. The blonde-haired girl then makes sound to express her disapproval for the boy's attire, before quickly averting her eyes towards her sister. Yet, something else catches her attention.

Looking over her younger sister, Yang spots the four quadruplets that she and Ruby met on the cruise ship. Again though, the blonde-haired girl stares at the perfectly-built, muscular brother of the four.

Yang notices the tribal-style tattoos that are completely made up of lines all over the boy's chest, biceps, and—if she had to guess—his upper back.

 _That's some serious dedication if a guy can get that big…_

A sly thought enters the girl's mind. _If he's that big, I wonder if his—_

"You know," Ruby says breaking her sister away from her inappropriate reverie. "You've been staring at Ritsu ever since we got here."

Yang turns her gaze to her sister—who watches the blonde-haired girl intently—just as she watched the Titanist and the Elementist high-five one another, and laugh about something she doesn't know. Though the blonde girl assumes that it would have to do with the group of giggling girls that walked passed quadruplets.

For some reason a small hint of jealousy creeps into Yang's mind.

 _Why do I feel this way? It's not like we're dating…yet why do I care if other girls look at him._

"Why don't you just ask him out already?"

By this point Yang looks to her sister with stern look.

"What? And have him be another Blyyd Pherohs guy?" The blonde-haired girl shakes her at that last part. "I don't think so."

"Speaking of Pherohs." Ruby says, "What happened between you two? I thought you two would still be together."

"Pfft. If he wasn't so social with that Melanie Hall chick, then maybe."

"Oh. He cheated didn't he?"

"What do you think?" Yang says, rhetorically.

"Well, Ritsu is nothing like Pherohs."

Yang snorts. "Yeah, we'll see…Anyways, what's that?"

Ruby sighs as she realizes how quickly her older was to change the subject, so as to stop talking about her love-life. So she, too, decides to drop the subject.

"A letter back to the gang at Signal." Ruby replies, "I promised to tell them all about Beacon, and how things are going."

At that, the young dark-red haired girl goes back to writing her letter.

"Aw. That's so cuuute!"

Just then, Ruby throws her pillow at her older sister.

"Shut up!" She says. "I didn't get to take my friends with me to school. It's weird not knowing anyone here."

"What about Jaune," Yang says, "he's…nice. There you go, plus one friend that's a hundred percent increase"

"What? Shieri and his brothers don't count?" Ruby asks, feeling a little annoyed that her sister completely avoided the four brothers.

Yang sighs. "Alright fine, they do. That's a four hundred percent increase to your already one hundred percent."

"Wrong. It's back to zero." Ruby replies.

Yang raises a brow for a second, as she watches her sister lay on her back and stare at the ceiling.

"Whatcha mean?" the blonde girl asks.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure Weiss counts as a negative friend…and her hate is about a five hundred percent decrease to what I already have…"

"So yeah, back to zero." Ruby adds.

Yang says, "No. You just made five friends, and one enemy."

At that last part, Ruby throws her second and only pillow left in her arsenal at her sister's face.

Yang moves the pillow off her face only to see a sadden expression on her sister's face.

"Look it's only been one day." The older sister says, "You got friends all around you. You just haven't met them yet."

For a brief moment, Ruby ponders thoughtfully over her sister's words.

 _But it's harder to make friends when everyone is two years older than you and thinks you're a kid._ Ruby wanted to say out loud.

Once the young dark-red haired girl finished her thought, the sound of a match being scratched against something grabs her attention.

To Ruby's surprise, she spots the person who lit the match and then lit a candle stick.

Ruby gasps lightly. "That girl."

From where she lays, Yang averts her gaze from her younger sister to where she sees a girl who's about her age, and has black hair, with yellow eyes; a bow on her head, and wears a gray short-skirt nightgown.

"You know her?" Yang asks, without looking at her sister.

"Not really." Ruby replies. "She saw what happened this morning, but left before I could anything."

At that, Yang stood up and at the same time grabbed her sister by her wrist, pulling her up and towards the direction where the other girl was sitting down, reading a book.

"Whelp, now's your chance."

"Wait! What're you doing!?" Ruby cries, as she tries to struggle from her sister's iron grip.

* * *

"Look, at that butt move."

After Ritsu figured out where in the ball-room Yang and her younger sister were sleeping tonight, the muscular boy couldn't help but continue to gawk at the blonde-haired girl. More specifically, the blonde girl's butt.

The Titanist couldn't help but realize how much more beautiful Yang was compared to the other girls he's ever seen, or been with. Though, it's not necessarily the blonde girl's looks that attracts him. Instead it's her fighting style and that inner-controlled rage that she manages to contain, and yet, being able to utilize it in a way to make her stronger and more formidable than she already is.

"Ritsu, you're gonna turn into a perv if you keep staring at her." Kluá whispers.

The sound of the Elementist's voice pulls the muscular boy out of his reverie, causing him to avert his eyes to his brother.

"You're just jealous that Goldilocks only looks at me, while her sister doesn't look at you, at all."

Kluá folds his arms across his chest as he goes back to lying down on his sleeping bag.

"Pfft, whatever."

As the Elementist lies on his sleeping bag, he stares up at the ceiling, allowing his thoughts to wander. Though his thoughts mostly keep revolving around Yang's younger sister, Ruby.

 _Ruby's so beautiful,_ Kluá thinks, _I wonder if she realizes that she is beautiful. I wonder…_

Kluá didn't even bother to finish his wandering thoughts. Instead the Elementist shakes his head and sighs, before closing his eyes. Yet, the Mistralian boy never got the chance to completely doze off yet, especially since his Titanist of a brother wouldn't stop nudging his leg.

"Kluá." Ritsu then whispers louder and shakes his brother against, "Kluá, dammit!"

Annoyed, Kluá sits back up and glares at his muscular brother.

"What, dammit?" Kluá whispers sharply.

The Elementist boy winces, as he realized that his whisper caused his other two brothers, Fang, and Shieri to stir in their sleep.

"Check it out." Ritsu whispers, "I think that's the girl, Shi and Fang were after."

At that, the Elementist follows his brother's gaze with his own, and then notices that Ruby and Yang are awake, and are standing over a girl sitting down against the wall, reading a book.

"Damn. It is." Kluá whispers in surprise.

The Mistralian boy was about to wake both of his sleeping brothers, though once he turned to look at the two assassins who have taken the liberty of sleeping under one of the windows in the ball room; he soon realized that they too, were wide awake. As well as staring at the same girl, that he and the Titanist noticed.

 _Uh-oh…_

Once the two assassins noticed the Faunus girl, they met each other's gaze for a brief moment, though no words were exchanged between the two boys. Instead, Fang nods to Shieri, and then the two went straight back to bed.

"What the hell?" Ritsu says. Luckily, his voice was only loud enough to cause other students lying around them to stir in their slumber.

"Hey!" Ritsu whispers loudly, moving over towards his Atlesian brother.

The muscular boy shakes his brother. "Hey!" he whispers again.

As his brother shakes him again, Shieri continues to keep his eyes shut, hoping that Ritsu would forget about his attempts at waking him. Though, his plan ultimately fails, when the Titanist shakes him a little too hard.

"What, Ritsu?" Shieri utters quietly. At this point, the Atlesian boy had to squander his irritation towards his muscular brother, only because he doesn't want to wake the other students.

"Aren't you and Fang supposed to kill that girl or something?" the Titanist whispers.

"We'll see." Shieri manages to say before yawning.

At that, the Atlesian boy was fast asleep, leaving only Kluá and Ritsu only ones awake.

The muscular boy frowns at his sleeping brothers.

 _Some lousy assassins you two turned out to be,_ Ritsu thought.

Ritsu was about to talk to his Elementist brother, though once he turned to him, he too was fast asleep.

 _Whatever,_ Ritsu thought. _These exams better be fun tomorrow._

At that final thought, the Titanist got up and walked carefully to his sleeping bag, to call it a night.

Once the muscular boy reached his sleeping bag, which was on the other side of his brother, Kluá, loud and familiar voices grab his attention.

"What in the world his going on over here!?" a girl, with snow-white hair and icy blue eyes, asks loudly.

As Ritsu watches, he recognizes the girl—from what his brothers Fang and Shieri told him—to be Weiss Schnee.

 _That girl looks sexy with her hair down like that,_ Ritsu thought. _Can't wait to get a piece of her too._

The loud voices continue.

"Some of us are trying to sleep here." The girl, Weiss says aloud.

"Oh, not you again!" Both Yang and Weiss shout at the same time.

 _Damn. I think sleeping's a good idea now._

As the arguments continued, Ritsu couldn't help but smile at how ridiculous the girls sounded. Though instead of staying up to watch the rest, he decided to lie back down on his sleeping bag and by the time he closed his eyes, he was already fast asleep.

* * *

 **Three hours later that same night.**

On top of the roof of the large ball-room, the Silver Knight crouches low and looks down at the front entrance of the building, waiting.

"Are you sure you are committed to this plan?" the Black Fang asks, moving to kneel beside his Atlesian brother. "It is more than likely to fail on the first attempt."

Shieri turns to look at his brother, expecting to see the Faunus boy's facial expression, though he can't see his face, when he too wears a full face mask.

It was surprising to the Atlesian boy, that Professor Ozpin allowed his Faunus brother to keep his mask, and not his broken sword, though for only this one purpose.

"Silver?"

Shieri turns to his brother for a brief moment, his thoughts, hanging on the fact that Fang just called him by his knighted name, _Silver_.

"We have to try…" the Silver Knight says, his voice sounding mechanical. "In order to complete the deal with Ozpin and Glynda." The boy then adds.

"Do you remember the girl's name?" Shieri asks.

Before the Black Fang could reply to his brother's question, the faint sound of a door opening and closing get the attention of bother assassin's.

"On time." The Silver Knight says calmly and coldly, as per his assassin training.

Just then, the two assassin's leap down in front of a girl dressed in a gray nightgown, with a black bow on her head. More specifically, the Faunus girl that the two were sent to kill.

Now, instead of running like she did before, the Faunus girl stands her ground, and is surprised that the two assassins are wearing the same attire that they wore when she first met them, all those weeks ago. Yet, something about how the assassins look, puzzles the young Faunus girl.

 _Wait,_ the Faunus girl thought, _they're unarmed._

Though that's not what really grabs her attention. In this situation, what really gets the Faunus girl's attention, is that the hero of the White-Fang, the Black Fang, is standing next to her previous attacker, the Silver Knight.

"Black Fang, why is he here? What's going on?" the Faunus girl asks, though she keeps voice leveled, so that no one inside the ball-room can hear her.

"I have discovered a revelation, in which explains the reason for his presence…as well as mine, Blake."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

At this point, Blake felt a chill run up her spine before taking a step back, though she still continues to remain her ground. Yet, fear still creeps in the back of her mind as she remembers how close the Atlesian assassin was to killing her.

"You have left the White-Fang, Blake." Fang adds, "Without the proper reassurance from the Alpha Leader, himself."

The Silver Knight slowly glances to his brother for a brief moment, before returning his gaze to the Faunus girl.

The Black Fang continues speaking. "After word had spread about the desertion of Adam's partner during a raid. The Alpha Leader sent me to seek out your death…"

"Though it has come to my attention that I am not only one searching for you." The Faunus boy adds.

"Wait, so on that day, when he—" Blake makes a gesture towards Shieri, "attacked me…you were not there to rescue me?"

Without saying anymore both Blake and the Silver Knight stare at each other for several heartbeats. Their expressions speaking far more than what words could have. Though in the end, once the Faunus girl tore her gaze away from the Atlesian assassin, she felt betrayed in realizing that the Black Fang was never there to help her escape.

Fang continues to stand motionless, while watching the two carefully. Though through the cutting hole made by Shieri's successful attempt at cutting his face, the Faunus boy could see the distraught feelings taking over Blake's body.

"No," Fang says carefully. "I was following our Alpha Leader's orders, yet as I have said before: A revelation was discovered."

"Which happens to be: why we understand your desertion was justifiable…" Shieri adds.

"Meaning, we too have defected from our factions, in search of a new life…For a man here—in this Kingdom—has revealed dark truths of our upbringings." At that last part Fang gestures to himself and his assassin brother.

"I-I'm not following, Black Fang." Blake says.

Which is true for the very shocked Faunus girl, especially since she heard stories that this assassin speaks in old cryptic literature, as per his training to not reveal exact information to the enemy, if he was ever captured.

Feeling the need to paraphrase for his brother, Shieri decides to speak up.

"The Black Fang means: we followed your example of leaving those that we once supported, because they have lied to us."

"Though, that was after we were making attempts at hunting you down and killing you."

Blake now eyes the two assassins carefully. "If you both just now realized this, then why am I here? What do you want with me?"

"Your help is required." The Black Fang answers.

"I still don't understand."

Shieri sighs, "We want to get revenge on our leaders, but we need someone who can help us with that."

"And if you do help us. We will return the favor by making sure no one working for the four Kingdoms, or the White-Fang, will hunt you down for desertion…and destruction of corporate property." The Silver Knight adds.

At that last part, Blake remembers the moment when she cut the caboose to the train carts to prevent her partner from blowing up the rest of the train, and the crew aboard it.

Now for several minutes, the two assassins watch the Faunus girl move several steps away from the two assassins, where she then gazes up at the moon.

Blake carefully ponders on the idea of taking part in their quest for revenge, especially since this may be her one and only chance to deliver justice to all of those in world who have fought for blood and segregation between the Humans and the Faunus people. Though her new found goal in life has quickly changed her mind.

"I'm sorry, but I can't." Blake finally says as she turns around to face the two assassins. "I wanted to get away from that life, and right now living the life of a student who's going to become a huntress, is what I want."

Shieri sighs and then crosses his arms over his chest. "Very well."

At that Shieri summons his wings.

In the same moment Shieri summoned his mechanical wings, Blake had a momentarily flashback to when the assassin flew after her at such blinding speeds. Such a remembrance caused the Faunus girl to feel anxious of her surroundings, but she then also had to remember that the Atlesian wasn't here to kill her. Or she sure hopes so.

"If this is your Answer, then be ready to survive on your own…" The Silver Knight utters coldly. He then turns his back on the girl.

"-For we cannot guarantee your safety after tonight." The Black Fang adds.

Just then, the Silver Knight takes off into the moonlit sky, leaving the Black Fang to linger in front of the Faunus girl for a little moment longer.

The Faunus boy looks up into the sky, in time to see his brother speed fly over and behind the Ball room, though he knows that Shieri is only going to land behind the building and change back into his pajamas and go to _sleep._

"Why are you still here?" Blake asks.

Fang turns to Blake, only see her steadily gaze on him…waiting to see any changes in his composure.

"I remain, because although your answer has been, _no._ I know you have a part in you, which seeks justice."

At that, the Black Fang moves to stand in front of the Faunus girl.

Now up close, Blake—being five-foot six—did not realize that the assassin is quite taller than her. Making him at least six-feet tall.

"Regardless of how this night ends, _Blake Belladonna,_ " Fang puts a hand on Blake's shoulder, "you already have the support you'll need to liberate the White-Fang from their demonic ways."

Once again, a puzzled expression splays across Blake's face as she removes the assassin's hand from her shoulder. "What're you talking about, Black Fang?"

At that the Black Fang turns away from the Faunus girl and faces the Ball room building.

"The answers you seek will, come in due time." Was the last thing the Faunus boy says, before leaping high and over the building in front of him, leaving the Faunus girl to gawk in his wake.

Blake lingered outside the building for a little bit longer, while her mind pondered on the Black Fang's words once again, before she realized how cold it was, after her heart and adrenaline had settled. Thus causing the Faunus girl to leave the cold and calling it a night.


	6. Chapter 6

**CH6: Building Family Ties**

 **Inside the student armory at Beacon Academy, twenty minutes before everyone shows up.**

"Because we're students, Kluá," Shieri begins to say. "We need to act like students, in the sense of having weapons and collaborating as a team."

The Mistralian boy snorts and turns his head to look at his Atlesian brother. "Easier said than done soldier boy."

Shieri regards his brother with a small smile in response.

At that, the four brothers continue putting on their gear that they wore on the cruise-ship coming to Beacon.

Just as Ritsu had only his armbraces to put on, a thought popped up into his mind, making the Titanist turn to his brother, Shieri.

"Exactly what kind of weapons did you get us, Atlesian war-junkie?" Ritsu asks.

Just then the other two brothers, Fang and Kluá, turn to their Atlesian brother with the same curious looks that their Titanist brother has.

Once he was fully dressed, Shieri beelines to his locker while completely ignore the other twins' stares, which was located in the opposite corner of the entrance to the armory, only several feet away from his brothers. The Atlesian boy then taps on several holographic keys on his locker.

After typing in his passcode, the locker beeps and opens, revealing the contents inside.

"Here," Shieri reaches into his locker and tosses a _scroll_ to each of his brothers. "I have already saved the passcodes for each of our lockers in each scroll, as well as their locker numbers. You three just need to find the lockers and enter the passcodes that are labeled with your name."

At that, the three brothers look to one another for a brief moment. A secret message being sent across the three brothers has left Shieri puzzled.

Several heartbeats passed before the Atlesian boy decided speak up about the awkward moment.

"What is it?" Shieri finally asks. Though he suddenly realizes that the three chose not to respond.

Just then, Ritsu removes himself from the bench, just as Kluá and Fang remove themselves from leaning against the wall and lockers. Now in the same instant that the three started moving, the brothers had are already started searching through their scrolls.

Once they found their lockers, which were all side-by-side with Shieri's locker obviously, they opened them to retrieve their weapons with which would then complete their guise as students.

Ritsu whistles. "Daaamn. Look at this sanjigun."

At that, Ritsu pulls his weapon out of the locker and performs a few twirls with his weapon, without touching any of his surroundings. Once he was done, he grabs the outer sections of the three-sectional staff, and gazes upon its perfect form.

Looking at his sanjigun, Ritsu realizes that it's not made in its original design. Instead, the sanjigun is colored red and black, with mace heads at the ends of the outer sections of the staff in the shape of lion heads, and is made with an unrecognizable metal. The sanjigun also has hand-grips on the ends of the center section of the staff, and one on the electrically-chained end of both outer sections of the staff—closer to the center section.

"I think I might love this weapon as much as I love Ruby's sis' sexy body."

Kluá laughs at his brother comment. "At least we know you won't be lonely every night."

"Ha! You wish brother." Ritsu replies.

Just then Kluá pulls out the very first weapon that he has ever owned.

"uhh…what kind of weapons are these, Shi?" Kluá asks in complete and utter confusion. "…Uh, Shieri?"

Shieri completely ignored his Mistralian brother, only to focus on Fang's reaction to what his new weapon is now.

To Fang's surprise, once he wrapped his hand around the hilt of his new dai-katana—which also has a grappling hook-blade on the bottom of the hilt—the blade of the weapon sparked to life with an all too familiar feint purple electricity.

It seemed as though a whole minute has passed since Fang has stared at his weapon, just as a flood of memories and emotions have drowned his thoughts.

 _Jitseen..._

Just then, the Silver Knight appeared by Fang to stand by his side.

"I took the liberty of taking your blade to an old contact of mine to smith the remains into this new weapon." Shieri says as he approaches his Faunus brother. "The old man was extremely ecstatic to see that the oscillators and the Aura adapter were made with a unique design and were still intact."

Fang smiles at his brother, "Why assume that I did not design the weapon myself."

"Because your skills are in stealth and assassination, not architectural blacksmithing." Shieri answers, with a smile.

Fang snorts, "Then I must thank you for saving what was left of Jitseen."

Shieri nods in response to his brother's comment, "You're welcome."

Before the two assassins could get any more emotional, the obnoxious voice of the Elementist grabs their attention.

"Yo, Shieri. I'm serious, what am I supposed to do with these?"

As Kluá asked his question again, all the students that were assigned to Professor Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch to supervise their exams started pouring into the armory.

"They're arcane armbands. Put them on your upper-arm and wait until we take our exams." Shieri finally replies, as he pulls out his own set of weapons and equipment to prepare for the exam.

Shieri almost forgot that—the same day he had his old contact make all three of his brothers' weapons—he also used his contacts equipment to redesign and tune-up his pistols, making them several inches longer and have far more stopping power than a cannon ever could. Then he also remembered that in order to hide the fact that he's the Silver Knight, he had that same contact make a jetpack that is thin and built for quick horizontal and vertical boosting, and traveling speeds that are far beyond the speed of sound. And with all of these new upgrades, the Atlesian boy could rely less on his Aura armor.

"Woah…" A familiar voice gasps.

The unexpected, yet familiar voice caused Shieri to feel slightly panicked, though when he turns to where the sound of the voice came from, he soon realizes now that it's the young dark-red haired girl, Ruby Rose, dressed in the same outfit when he first met her. Though when he turns to face her, the young girl's entire body language expresses complete and utter excitement, for reasons he was slowly starting to realize.

"Those pistols are huge!" Ruby exclaims. "And is that a jetpack!?"

Shieri couldn't help but smile, yet under his happy expression he knew to be careful of what to say next about his new equipment.

"Yes and yes." Shieri responds, "I figured it was time to start fresh, here at Beacon."

At that, the Atlesian boy holsters his long pistols on his hip and then clamps the jetpack on the small magnet on his back. Shieri then reaches into his pocket and pulls out his HUD monocle and sets it over his eye, just as he starts to walk past the young girl.

Shieri puts a hand on Ruby's shoulder and stops in mid-step.

"I'll see you outside by the cliff." The young boy replies in Ruby's ear.

Ruby gawks at the Atlesian boy as he continues to walk towards the entrance and then disappears behind Yang, who just then enters the armory.

At that, the young dark-red haired girl turns to her own locker to grab her own weapon and equipment. Then with a warm feeling starting to rise in her stomach, a smile splays all across the young girl's face.

* * *

Unbeknownst to the Silver Knight, Yang eyes the Atlesian boy carefully in her peripheral, as he passes her in the door way. Though once he made it out of the armory, the blonde-haired girl stops and stares at the back of the young boy as he continues to march across the combat training arena and up the stairs to where she thinks is to the cliffs by the forest. Yang soon also realizes that the Atlesian boy has long dual pistols at his sides and what looks like a metal backpack.

 _Okay, this guy's taking things a little too seriously,_ the blonde-haired girl thought. _But then again, he is from Atlas._

"Yo, Goldilocks!" a voice shouts.

Immediately, Yang turns to face the direction the familiar voice came from.

"Oh. Ritsu." Yang says, suddenly.

Just then, the blonde-haired girl watches the Titanist make his way toward her, while maneuvering pass the other students. One of them being her sister, Ruby.

"What's the matter, little lady," Ritsu says, "Goldilock's getting old for you?"

At that, Yang rolls her eyes just as Ritsu approaches her. She then puts a hand on her hip once the muscular boy stands before her.

As the Titanist stands in front of her, Yang couldn't help but look at the tattoos that aren't hidden under the vest.

 _Woah,_ Yang thought. _These are some crazy tattoos. They definitely gotta mean something. And I definitely haven't seen anyone from Vacuo with those before._

When he realizes that the blonde-haired girl was staring for too long, Ritsu couldn't help but grin as he looks down at the girl.

"Like what you see?" Ritsu asks, feeling overly confident in every way possible.

Almost immediately, Ritsu's question breaks Yang out of her reverie.

"Pfft. You wish I did." Yang says, sharply.

"I know you do, Goldilocks." Ritsu replies confidently.

"Okay, _that is_ starting to get old."

"Alright," Ritsu holds his hands up, feigning surrender. "I'll stop calling you that," Now the muscular boy has a sly look on his face.

"As long you go out with me after these exams." The Titanist adds.

For a second, Yang's jaw drops, for she couldn't believe what the muscular boy just asked him. And neither could everyone else that's around, who knows what's actually going on.

"Y-You're kidding me right?" the Blonde-haired girl manages to spit out.

"Hey," Ritsu shrugs, "I'm just trying to get this sexy lady before any other guy can, after today."

At that last part, Yang rolls her eyes, folds her arms across her chest, and leans to one side of her body.

"Please," she says. "You would have to do something incredibly insane, if you want me to say: yes."

The muscular boy sighs. "Alright," Ritsu says as he decides to walk pass the blonde-haired girl. "If that's what it takes. Then you're gonna be all mine very soon, little lady."

"Pfft, keep dreaming, lover boy." The Blonde-haired girl says all of sudden.

Just then, Yang surprisingly stops Ritsu's hand in mid-reach as he tried to make a sneaky motion to cup her chin. Though in the moment, the young girl's heart starts to beat faster, when she only then realizes that the boy's hand was actually closer than she anticipated.

"Not," Yang manages to keep her voice steady, "until you do something crazy, muscles."

Ritsu only snorts in response and then grins at the young girl for a second before walking passed her, and out of the armory.

Once the Titanist left the armory, Yang took a deep breath before turning back around and then making her way to her locker once again.

"Jeez, he's so cocky" Yang finally says under her breath, as she opens her locker to prepare herself for the day.

* * *

Just as Kluá finally figured out how his weapons work—no thanks to his Atlesian brother; he hears two familiar voices.

 _Holy crap, Ruby's here_.

Once the Elementist recognized one of the voices as being Ruby, the almost ecstatic young boy closes his locker and decides to make his way towards the young red-haired girl.

* * *

…

"My dear sister, Yang," Ruby says sounding almost shock and frustrated. "Are you implying that you do not wish to be on the same team as me?"

"What!?" Yang starts, "No, of course I do. I just thought—I don't know, maybe…"

For quick second Yang paused before choosing her words carefully, "…it will help break you out of your shell."

"What the!?" Ruby cries out.

 _Oh, no._ Kluá thought in dismay.

After hearing Ruby's outrageous cries to her sister's response, the wide-eyed Elementist quickly realized that this is not the perfect moment to go say hello. Thus, the Mistralian boy decides to walk around the two arguing sisters, to avoid any mayhem. Though as the Elementist made his way past two other girls and a guy, one being the famous Weiss Schnee—heiress to the Schnee dust company; the other being that Jaune Arc guy who puked after getting off the airship, and the last person being—

 _Wait a sec!_ Kluá thinks to himself as he stops in mid-step. He then turns back around, only to make sure that his mind wasn't playing any tricks on him.

Now as the Mistralian boy continues to stare at the armored redhead with the utmost shocked looked possible for him, only one name comes to mind.

"No way." Kluá manages to spit out, "P-Pyrrha?"

Hearing someone say her name, the young red-haired turns her attention away from the heiress—who is completely occupied bickering with the Jaune guy—and locks eyes with the Elementist. Though when their eyes focus on one another for more than a mere second, the young red-haired girl couldn't help but share the same shocked expression that Kluá had only seconds before they made eye contact.

"Kluá!" Pyrrha says happily, as the Elementist approaches her, while avoiding the heiress and puke-boy. "What a surprise to see you here. It's been too long."

"Hey! It has!" Kluá says, "I thought you were going to Haven, like I did."

At that, the two hug one another quickly, before they both stood back and held each other's hands at full arms-length.

"I was going to," Pyrrha starts, "but the headmaster of Beacon came to my home and invited me to come to this academy.

"And I accepted" Pyrrha adds.

"Woah, he went all the way to Mistral to give you a proposition, which you said yes to." Kluá says feeling astonished.

"Why yes." Pyrrha replies happily.

"But Beacon isn't as great as Haven when it comes to learning about combating Grimm."

"That may be true, but what Professor Ozpin has said, had me convinced to come here."

As soon as she said that, the Mistralian boy let go of the armored girl's hands, while remembering what Ozpin has told him, with which he too was convinced to enroll in Beacon Academy.

Now hesitantly, Kluá turns away from his best-friend and makes his way towards the door leading out of the armory, where his brother, Fang waits for him patiently.

 _Kluá?_

Once Pyrrha noticed the sad and distant look on the boy's face, she made a motion to put a hand on his shoulder to stop him but as soon as she made the motion, she was interrupted by the boy who was currently flirting with Weiss Schnee.

"So hot stuff," Jaune starts…

* * *

 **On Beacon Cliff, east of Beacon Academy.**

Standing in a line side-by-side on top of metal plates in the ground with the Beacon Academy symbol on them, the students that were selected to be monitored by the headmaster, Professor Ozpin, and his assistant, Glynda Goodwitch, wait patiently as the two instructors fiddle with their scroll tablets.

"Yo, Professor." Ritsu says aloud with his arms crossed over his chest. "Are we gonna fight Grimm yet? I'm getting bored just by standing here."

Fang, feeling annoyed as always with his Titanist-for-a-brother, turns his head to look at the muscular boy.

"If you were to learn to become patient, all your questions will be answered."

Ritsu sighs, "Yeah, no one understands you wolf-boy. Speak proper."

"He is speaking proper, Ritsu." Kluá says.

The muscular boy only snorts in response, to mock his Mistralian brother.

 _It is surprising to see that this is the only time when the three ever speak to each other, whole heartedly._ Shieri thought, without having to look his three brothers and their reactions to one another's responses.

Though, just when Shieri—who has been ignoring all three of his brothers for the remainder of their bickering—was nudged on his arm by the girl standing next to him on his right, he couldn't help but sigh over the fact that, ever since he came to Beacon, he could never earn some peace and quiet.

Once he turns his head to face the girl standing next to him, the Silver Knight continued to maintain his expressionless facial expression, as he immediately recognizes the girl to be Weiss Schnee.

Shieri quickly notices the young girl's attire today, with which is all white on the outside, and red on the inside, and contains a pair of high-heels that are designed to reach just below her knee; a short sleeveless combat dress with a black camisole underneath, and white ribbon tied around the waist, and an upper chest long-sleeve coat. Now as far as accessories go, the heiress wears a small pouch on the small of her back; a large hair-tie; and a necklace with a blue gem.

"Excuse me, but can those three be any louder?" Weiss asks, feeling annoyed by Shieri's brothers' bickering. "At this rate, we'll be stuck here all day."

The Atlesian boy regards the young Schnee heiress in silence as he glances in her direction for a split-second, only to see her annoyed facial expression. And hear her make a frustrated sigh.

Just then, Shieri watches Ms. Goodwitch glare at his three brothers as their arguments slowly develop into a scene in which everyone has started to take notice in them.

"Ritsu, you're a fool who could not even hit his own reflection in water."

"…and you're too stupid to insult, wolf-boy" Ritsu says half-angrily.

"And the both of you are seriously acting like littles kids." Kluá retorts.

Ritsu turns to his left to stare at his Mistralian brother, "You wanna fight about it, nature boy?"

Just then, the Titanist steps off the metal plate and moves closer to his brother, with clenched fists at his side.

Before Ritsu could close the distance between him and Kluá, the sound of someone clearing their throat stops him.

The muscular boy averts his eyes to the direction of the cliff only to see the headmaster gaze intently at him, while the assistant glares.

"Ritsu, if you may…" Ozpin says calmly while letting the words hang in the air, and making a gesture to the vacant metal plate on the ground.

"I wish to complete this task as eagerly as the rest of the students attending the exam today." The headmaster then adds.

Ritsu snorts aggressively in response, though he admittedly takes a few steps back and stands on top of the metal plate in the ground.

"Now," the headmaster starts, "for years, you have trained to become warriors. Today, your abilities will be evaluated, in the Emerald Forest."

As Professor Ozpin finished his sentence, not a minute too soon, Glynda Goodwitch chimes in on-beat.

"Now, I'm sure many of you have heard the rumor about the assignment of teams." The assistant huntress starts, "Well, allow us to put an end to your confusion…Each of you will be given teams…"

The huntress pauses for a second for dramatic effect.

"…Today." The woman adds.

Once Ms. Goodwitch was done speaking, two students over to his right, Shieri hears Ruby moan in disapproval.

"These teammates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon-"

Shieri glances to his left, just in time to notice his three brothers looking directly at him.

In response to their stares, the Atlesian boy nods before turning his attention back to the two huntsmen.

"—So it is in your best interest to pair with someone whom you can work well. With that being said, the first person you make eye contact with, after landing, will be your partner for the next four years."

Just then Ruby makes a loud outburst with which, the Silver Knight could not help but smile wryly.

 _Seems like working with other people isn't Ruby's forte._

"See, I told you!" a girl Shieri doesn't know exclaims.

"Once you have partnered up, you will make your way to the northern end of the forest."

"You will meet opposition along the way." The headmaster continues, "Do not hesitate to destroy everything in your path…or you will die…"

At that Ritsu pounds his fists together.

"I'd like to see that happen." He utters quietly. Yet, although he kept his voice low, both Kluá and Fang couldn't help but smile wryly, for they too felt the same way about what lies within the Emerald Forest.

Once again, the Beacon headmaster continues his speech, as the agitation in all the students begin to build.

"You will be monitored, and graded, for the duration of your initiation…but our instructors will not intervene." Ozpin continues, "You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path, containing several relics…Each pair must choose one, and return to the top of cliff."

The headmaster then adds, "You will guard that item—as well as your standing—and grade you appropriately…Are there any questions?"

At the end of the group to his right, Shieri hears one of the students speak up.

"Yeah um…sir—"

"Good. Now. Then. Take your positions." The headmaster says without missing a beat.

Just then, all the students that were lined up quickly get into battle-ready positions.

 _Finally! Some action!_ The Titanist thought, as he crouched low into a jumping position, just as his brothers do the same.

Then slowly, one-by-one, each and every student, starting from the left and then moving to right are now being launched into the air at high speeds, by the metal plates on the ground with which were actually launching pads.

As the number of students on the ground dwindle, Shieri couldn't help but listen to the nervousness in the last student's voice as he tries to comprehend what is going on.

 _Hmph._ Shieri thought, _Looks like someone is afraid of heights._

At that last thought, the Atlesian boy turns to his left, just in time to see his brother Kluá grin in his direction. It only took the boy a split-second to realize that the Elementist was actually looking at him.

"Wanna race, Shi?" Kluá asks ecstatically.

The Silver Knight, as he puts on his half-mask, couldn't help but smile. Now once his mask was on, the young boy's smile turned into a grin, for he never had this kind of happy feeling before, as an assassin. Especially for something like this.

Now all of a sudden, Shieri couldn't help but chuckle, as he says, "You're on" Before looking into the sky ahead of him.

Slowly, the Silver Knight counts down from three once the only people left on the left-side of the line-up are him and his brothers.

 _Three…_

As Ritsu launches into the air, a loud battle-cry roars in his wake.

 _Two…_

Fang reaches around his back to grip the sheath of his dai-katana—which sits horizontally on his back—tightly, before getting launched into the air.

 _One…_

Kluá couldn't help but shout _Woohoo!_ Just as he too gets launched into the air.

Once his last brother was in the air, Shieri swiftly puts on his HUD monocle, and then with his mind, activates his jetpack, while setting it into Over-Boost mode.

Just as Shieri heard the click of the release mechanism for his launch pad, his Over-Boost system activates. With which a white light illuminates out of the exhaust at the bottom of the pack, and wings—similar to his own—protrude from the sides of the jetpack.

Now, just as the launch pad reached its full extension, the jetpack on Shieri's back then release an enormous amount of Dust-exhaust with which completely scorches the ground into a deep jet-black color behind the launch pad, just as far as fifteen feet.

As always being amazed by the Atlesian boy's skills and weapons…and equipment obviously, Ruby couldn't but gawk as her eyes quickly look out into the blue-sky as she sees two figures race out towards the northern end of the forest.

"Woahhh…" was all the young dark-red haired girl could muster, as the reasoning for why her heart races changes from the excitement about her starting the initiation into Beacon Academy, to the pure admiration she feels towards this mysterious boy who flew her home that one night so long ago.

* * *

"Grrr-aahh!"

Shouting a large battle-cry, Ritsu continues to fall from the sky, where he lands in a large clearing within the thick Emerald Forest. Though as the muscular boy lands directly in the center of the clearing, he unnecessarily slams his fist into the ground, where the strength of his punch causes the ground underneath him to sink in and create a very large and deep crater. With which reaches sixty feet in diameter, and as deep as forty feet.

Once the rumbling and the deformation of the ground was over, the Titanist slowly rises up from his crouching position, where he dusts off his hands and then the rest of himself.

"This could've been bigger." The Titanist says, with a hint of disapproval in his voice.

At that, Ritsu slowly walks up the sides of the deep crater while at the same time he opens one of his four small pouches that are on his pant legs, and pulls out two small-thin—and round—dust canister. One filled with just water, and the other one being a mixture of protein powder…and a combination of pure, and unstable Dust.

Now with the two canisters, Ritsu pops the lids open and raises both to his lips so he can chug them both.

 **Boom!**

"The hell was—"

As the Titanist gazes up into the cloudless sky, he manages to catch a blur of something yellow fly overhead, while being followed up by exploding Dust.

Just then, Ritsu's jaw drops for a quick second before he starts to grin widely.

"I'M COMING GOLDILOCKS!" Was all the Titanist shouts into the sky, as he puts away his canisters and then charges up the crater after Yang Xiaolong.

As he sprints like a maniac up the crater, a figure silhouetted by the shades of the trees, watches the Titanist carefully, from behind him. Though, once the muscular boy reaches the top of the crater he made, the silhouetted figure decides to step out of the shadows, silently and carefully.

"Ritsu!" Fang shouts sharply.

Ritsu was only able to take two steps away from the crater when the sound of his Faunus brother's voice stopped him.

"What, Fang!?"

In reply to his response, Fang only leaped into the air to scale across the large crater that his brother made. Once he landed next to his brother, the Faunus boy took a quick glance at his brother slowly once he rose to a stand, and then started walking north.

"We need to make haste." Fang says calmly, "For we must meet up with our brothers to gather our relics."

"And not chase some girl who has no need for you." The Faunus boy adds.

Ritsu snorts. "You're just jealous that Yang wants to be with a Titan and not some lost puppy, who was picked off the street."

At that the muscular boy follows his brother as they walk deeper into a certain section of the forest, while moving north.

"I have no need for a relationship, at this point in time." Fang says.

"God, Fang" Ritsu breathes. "Can you talk like a normal person?"

Knowing that his brother can't see his face, Fang smiles wryly.

"If you want me to talk like a _normal_ person," Fang starts. "Then understand this: You are my partner for our entire stay at this Academy. So I wish you luck in finding Ms. Xiaolong to be your partner."

Just then Ritsu's eyes when wide for a split-second, as the rules of how teams were formed came to his mind.

"God dammit, wolf-boy," the muscular boy face-palms himself. "I can never get away with anything, while you're here."

Fang chuckles, "It's only for your safety little brother."

At that, the Black Fang leaps into the air and disappears atop of the surrounding trees.

"HEY!" Ritsu shouts, "WHO YOU CALLING LITTLE!?"

Feeling frustration by his brother's so-called insult, the muscular boy charges after his brother, while bashing down nearby trees, and heading north…more or less likely after his brother.

* * *

"So," Kluá starts. "Exactly how long do you think it's gonna take for them to get here?"

At the ancient relic site, the Silver Knight had actually found it to be a meditation circle for Dust-archaic users, with which seems quite ironic, especially since the Atlesian is here with someone who is an archaic user.

Now as the Atlesian boy continues gaze around the circle, he quickly realizes that there are multiple stone pedestals with a single chess piece on each one.

 _So this is Ozpin's game, huh._ The Atlesian boy thought, _I wonder what his true intentions are, by assigning students with these game pieces._

"Hey, Remnant to Shieri." Kluá says mockingly, "is anyone there?"

Being broken out of his reverie, Shieri quickly feels a hint of frustration but suppresses, so as to keep his calm, as per usual of his training.

Shieri sighs before looking up into the sky, where his brother looks like he's lying on his side as he hovers in the air.

"For most of the students, maybe an hour or two, if they have not been trained to track and locate. Though the others, I expect them to be here soon."

By that last part, Kluá knew exactly which particular group of students his brother would be talking about. Though he couldn't help but ask another question.

"Ookay…" Kluá says, "how 'bout Ritsu and Fang? You think they'll get here in time?"

"So we can all choose the same chess piece." The Elementist adds lastly.

As Shieri makes his way to one of the pedestals, he studies the details and designs of the small stone piece, though it's the chess piece on top of the small structure that gets his attention. A Black Knight chess piece.

"As long as—" the Atlesian boy grasps the chess piece and holds up high and examines it in all directions, "—Fang keeps Ritsu on track, they should be here shortly."

Once the Silver Knight was done inspecting the Black Knight piece, he pockets it in the small pouch on one of his pant legs. The young boy then scans the surroundings of the ancient relic with his HUD monocle, looking for any signs of the other students, or the creatures of Grimm.

Through the view of his monocle, Shieri changes views from x-ray; to thermal;

Kluá sighs. "Shieri," the Elementist starts, "you do realize it's gonna be like an hour or so until anyone shows up."

The Silver Knight turns his gaze once again to his brother as he floats down to land. "The timing it takes to get here is not my concern."

"Okaaaay…Then what is?" Kluá asks.

"The types of Grimm that Ozpin has not told any of us." Shieri answers.

"Well, it would kinda be cheating if the professor told us what's out there." Kluá replies back.

"Hmm…that's true." Was the Atlesian boy's only response to his brother before he folded his arms across his chest and then leaned against one of the pillars that still hold the structure outlining one side of the meditation circle.

As the Elementist watches his brother walk towards the pillar on the farthest right, he sighs and gazes around at his surroundings.

Kluá takes in the fact that the meditation circle is more than partially destroyed, and that two-thirds of the pillars that surround the circle still stand. As well as the stone-wall that outlines the rest. The young boy then notices that directly in front of the opening of the mid-sized structure is a very large open field that's about half a mile long and a hundred-fifty meters wide, that ends with a large hill.

Once the Elementist was done observing his current environment, he turns to face his brother.

"Hey, Shi."

Shieri—who's head was down—opens his eyes and lifts his head up. The Silver Knight then looks directly at his brother as he speaks.

"What?" the Atlesian asks.

Kluá opens his mouth to respond but closes it as he ponders his thoughts a little longer.

When his brother didn't respond immediately, the Atlesian boy only looks at his brother with a furrowed brow.

The silence had only lasted a minute before Kluá finally spoke.

"Exactly, what did the Atlesian general do to you, before you came to Beacon?"

Shieri closes his eyes momentarily as he sighs.

"Enough to make me disband myself from his services." The Atlesian boy finally says.

"That must've been rough." Kluá replies.

Shieri snorts, "It was bound to happen sooner or later."

Another though comes to the Elementist's mind. "So, if you're not working with the general anymore, what does that make you…as a Knight I mean."

For only a moment, Shieri stares at his brother with a puzzled expression, while pondering his thoughts, and choosing his words carefully. Yet before he decided talk, the Atlesian boy first scanned his immediate surroundings with his HUD monocle.

While turning a full three-hundred and sixty degrees, the Silver Knight switched his HUD vision to Electromagnetic vision, in which he was able to find all of the surrounding visual and audio equipment hidden within the tree lines that the Academy uses to monitor the activities in the forest; as well as the ones embedded within the stone structure of the meditation circle.

Once he was able to find every last device that are close by, Shieri only highlighted the audio listening devices via his HUD, and by using his mind and aura to create a launch command inside his monocle, send a wave of invisible distorted electricity that would only disable the devices for a set amount of time.

 _I give'em five minutes before they turn back on._ Shieri thought, indicating to the audio devices that are around him.

 _Now then…_

The Silver Knight turns back to face his brother, who had the utmost bewildered expression on his face. Although, it didn't last long once the Atlesian opened his mouth to speak.

"As a Knight of the Round…" Shieri starts, while keeping his voice leveled. "it means I am an independent mercenary."

"Which is not uncommon for most Knights," the Atlesian boy then adds.

"Would that mean, it'll be harder for you to find jobs and you know…" Kluá pauses before moving closer to his brother so he can whisper the last part in his ear. "do some cool assassin stuff."

Once the Mistralian boy took a step back to see his brothers face, Shieri couldn't help but glare at him.

 _This idiot can't be serious._

"Hey," Kluá exclaims, "I was just wondering, you know."

Shieri sighs. "Yes, I know." he says "Yet, is that all that piques your interest."

Kluá shrugs, "Somewhat."

"Then this is a conversation best dealt with someone who's maturity, far exceeds your own." Was all Shieri said before he turned away from his brother, with his arms folded across his chest.

"Wow, rude much?"

"That doesn't matter right now."

Kluá sighs, "Geez you and Fang are such happy campers…everyone's gonna love you guys."

Shieri, whose facial expression remains emotionless, only snorts in response to his brother's comment.

* * *

"Damn," Ritsu starts. "Looks like we missed the party."

At that, Ritsu and his brother Fang, tread carefully through a large black, and charcoaled, section of the forest that looks like it was set ablaze quite recently. The smell of burnt grass and trees still fresh in the air.

Though as the two brothers walk through the charred land mass, Fang stops momentarily to kneel down and brush a hand over burnt grass.

"It seems as though this was made destructively…and not naturally."

Ritsu turns his torso far enough to see his brother behind, as he continues to walk.

"Geez, I wonder what gave you the first clue genius…the fact that someone sucks with fire? Or the fact that the land is charred black."

As the Faunus boy slowly rises to a stance, he dusts his gloved-hands clean while making his way towards Ritsu. Fang then also reaches behind the small of his back and clasps his right hand around the hilt of his dai-katana.

"It seems as though your sarcasm remains aggressive." Fang replies.

Ritsu sighs and interlocks his fingers behind his head. "Only to you, brother."

For some reason, once Ritsu said that, Fang couldn't help but have a weird feeling creep into his body, with which has started to make him smile.

"Is that so?" Fang asks, a wryly smile on his face. Though it was only short-lived since the Faunus boy did not want his muscular brother to see any expressions that look remotely close to being happy.

"Yup." Ritsu starts, "And that's because you have a higher tolerance level than Shieri."

"And Kluá?"

"Nah, Kluá enjoys it…Only because he can show off some of his knowledge."

"So it gets annoying really fast." The muscular boy adds.

"I see," was all Fang said before the two brothers continued to walk in silence all the way to their destination.

* * *

 **About an hour later…**

As she paces back and forth, Glynda Goodwitch swiftly swipes her finger across the screen of her scroll-tablet, with which the motion would change the camera monitor to another camera, thus showing the progress of another student. Now with several more swipes of her finger across the tablet's screen, the huntress notices that many of the cameras are offline.

 _Strange._ The huntress thought, _I wonder if the cameras are down because of Grimm activity._

As Glynda made that last thought, another one immediately came to mind.

 _Or it could be that hot-headed Titan boy, Ritsu._

At that, the huntress then remembers the boy's attitude towards his brother, before he was launched with the other students. As well as the fact that the boy caused what looked like a minor earthquake in the distance.

Now as more time passes, Glynda continues to pace in an oval-like path, when finally, she reaches the last camera monitor on her tablet, with which she notices the last two students have now paired with one another. The huntress then moves to stand by the headmaster to confirm her recent observation.

"Our last pair has been formed, sir." Glynda starts, "Lie Ren and Nora Valkyrie."

The huntress sighs in disappointment as she taps on the screen to zoom in on the two students.

"Poor boy. I can't possibly imagine those two getting along." The huntress adds, "Still. He's probably better off than Ms. Nikos'."

For only a second, Ozpin quickly glances at his assistant before looking back down at his own tablet.

"I don't care what his transcripts say. That Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat."

At that, Ms. Goodwitch taps the circle at the bottom left of the screen, with which has tablet revert itself to a blank screen.

"I guess we'll find out, soon enough," Glynda then says before turning on her heel to walk away from Beacon Cliff.

"At their current pace," Glynda says, "they should reach the temple within just a few minutes."

After taking a few steps, the huntress stops and turns to look at the headmaster as a thought occurs to her.

"Speaking of which," Glynda says, "What did you use as relics this year…?

"...Professor Ozpin?" Glynda asks.

Being completely occupied, Ozpin ignores his assistant as he continues to monitor a certain pair of students. One being the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, Weiss Schnee; and the other being the silver-eyed girl, Ruby Rose.

* * *

"Please tell me this is where we're supposed to go now?" Ritsu asks, as he tosses a dead Beowulf to the side.

Slowly, Fang rises to stand as he pulls his dai-katana out of the ground, with which he flicks his wrist to remove any dust, or debris from the blade.

"If the presence of Grimm are strong here—" The Faunus boy sheaths his sword, "—then this must be the right direction."

Ritsu sighs as he puts his hands on his hips and gazes around at the aftermath of him and his brother's little skirmish with the creatures of Grimm.

"Or it could be that there's too much negative energy floatin 'round." Ritsu replies.

Fang nods, "That is another possibility."

Now without saying another word, Fang turns his gaze away from his brother to the large hill that the two had intended to climb if it weren't for the ambush by the creatures of Grimm, and starts to move towards it.

Noticing where his brother is going, the Titanist follows suit, and the two start moving up the base of the hill.

* * *

"Say, Fang." Ritsu starts, breaking the silence after the two had already climbed for several minutes.

The Faunus boy makes a terse _hmm_ noise in response.

"So what's your deal?" the muscular boy asked, his voice unsteady because of the large strides he has been focusing on, this entire time.

The Black Fang glances back at his brother and takes notice in the muscular boy's lack of proper breathing…which is probably due to his lack of a well exercised cardiovascular system.

"I do not understand your question." Fang says calmly.

"I mean," Ritsu starts, "how was it growing up…did you—you know: live life like a normal kid? Or did you always play ninja your whole life?"

Instead of answering directly, Fang answers his brother's question with another question.

"Why is my life in the past, matter?"

"Cause I wanna know what kinda person my animal brother is?"

Fang sighs, "your racism never seizes."

"Dude, it's only been you this whole time that I've been racist towards."

"Is it so?"

"Yes. You idiot." Ritsu starts, "I've been doin' it because I want u to fight me."

Once the Faunus boy reached the top of the steep hill, with his twin brother at tow, Fang turns half-way to look down and watch the muscular struggle for the last ten strides he has left.

Fang snorts, "Why should I fight a barbarian who cannot climb a hilltop with ease."

"Listen smart ass…" Ritsu could not finish his sentence, for his exhaustion had finally taken over, causing him to drop to his hands and knees.

"To hell…with it." Was all the Titanist could say before he started to bear-crawl the last few strides.

Once at the top, several minutes passed when Ritsu was able to level his breathing once again. Now whereas, during this time, Fang folded his arms across his chest and gaze intently down at the other end of the hill.

From atop the hill, the Faunus boy can see the derelict temple with which his Atlesian brother has informed him to be the exact location where the _relics_ are kept.

Words from Shieri's instructions to Ritsu, Kluá, himself come to the Faunus boys' mind.

 _Remember, we need to rush this so we can grab two of the same relics before the other students arrive at the assigned destination._

Fang also remembers his Mistralian brother asking about what would happen if they failed to, and the harsh—but realistic—response the Atlesian replied with.

 _Then we would be forcing ourselves to sacrifice more lives for our mission to succeed._

Just the bare thought of their mission and the Silver Knight's behavior towards it has suddenly made Fang feel discomforted, but only slightly. Since he would have given a similar response as well.

"Hey check it out," a voice confirms "Shi and Kluá are already there."

Only for a nanosecond was Fang startled by the sound of his brother's voice. The Faunus boy averted his gaze from the bottom of the hill to his right where his Titanist brother stands with his hands behind his head, looking all too relaxed.

The Black Fang's eyebrows furrow only for a second.

 _Exhausted huh?_ Fang thought, _either he is quite deceptive, or he has consumed his mixed Dust while I was distracted, which would have given him an unbelievable amount of energy._

Instead of pushing further on the subject, Fang—without a word to Ritsu—looks back at the derelict temple notices that what his brother said was true.

Fang, with his keen Faunus wolf-eyes, he was able to make out to figures with long black hair, and with a strong medium build. As well as the outfits the Elementist and the Silver Knight chose to wear as their battle gear for the entire stay at Beacon Academy.

"It appears you are right." Fang finally says.

"Well d'uh, idiot."

Before the Faunus boy could reply back with an insult of his own, the Titanist smacks him in the back.

"Now, quit standing there like a silent creep and let's go already."

Just then, Ritsu bends his knees and leaps surprisingly high in the air.

When Fang was able to recompose himself, he watched with almost wide eyes as his muscular brother practically glides through the air all the way to the derelict temple.

With those last words Ritsu said before he jumped, Fang remembers the Titanist being the real creep since he was staring at Yang's butt for the entire walk to Beacon cliff.

Fang snorts, "and a creep he says I am."

At that, the Black Fang follows suit and leaps into the air after his brother.


	7. Chapter 7

**HI READERS!** **This is my first input and briefing for u guys. I shud've done this already in CH1 but I didn't, and a fellow reader of mine made me realize why I shud. So here we go! First off, I don't own RWBY or anything from RWBY (y'all should atleast know what that entails to), but I do own the OC characters of mine which are the quadruplets as of now. Also fun fact for u guys…if any of u have watched the fanimations of RWBY by Mark Zhang, I have gotten permission from him via comments on one of his videos (I don't remember which one) to intertwine his current characters and mine in this story…though they will not be used right away because I have awesome plans for our characters in the future…also I'm sorry if im posting at a slow pace. Life is getting in the way lol, but I'll do my best to work faster for u guys.**

 **CH7 – Rigorous Exams**

While hovering in mid-air and some little ways away from the temple, as well as pretending to be lying down on his back with his hands behind his head, Kluá feels a slight change in the wind which makes the Elementist turn his head towards the source of the disturbance.

As the Elementist discovered the source of the disturbance, his eyes go wide as an all too familiar person falls from the sky like a cannonball.

"OH SH—" Was all Kluá could muster to say before his muscular brother crashes into him at high enough speed for the two to make a small crater in the ground.

Shieri, who was quietly leaning against one of the standing pillars with his arms folded, quickly removes himself and leaps into a battle stance, facing the small crater that was not there before. The Atlesian's stance consisted of the boy standing with his feet spread and his hands at his sides where he tilted his large dual-pistols in their holsters forward. And his fingers on both triggers, ready to fire.

As quickly as Shieri jumped into one of his battle stances, his Faunus brother, Fang, lands gracefully and quietly next to the top of the small crater.

Watching his brother slowly rise to a stand, after landing into a crouching position, Shieri tilts his pistols back down towards the ground and then recompose himself.

"Was that Ritsu?" Shieri asks his Faunus brother.

Fang averts his gaze towards the bottom of the small crater.

"Yes." Fang says, "It also appears that he has landed on Kluá."

Shieri snorts, "Is he alright?"

Fang glances back at his Atlesian brother in time to see him walk towards the small crater made by their brothers.

"I would assume he is." The Faunus boy replies as his gaze follows Shieri's towards the bottom of the crater.

From where they stand, the _retired assassins_ watch Ritsu roll off of his brother and slowly rise up into a sitting position, while their Mistralian brother groans and twitches, showing signs of life obviously.

"Damn," Ritsu groans, "it feels like I hit something."

"Yeah, our brother." Shieri says.

At that, the Atlesian boy activates his HUD and quickly monitors Kluá's bio-signs.

"And he appears to be find…so he should stop faking now."

At that, Kluá opens his eyes and glares at his two brothers who stand before him at the top of the small crater momentarily, before feeling the quick shock of pain from Ritsu's body making hard contact with him.

"But it…HURTS, DAMN IT!." The Elementist cries.

Feeling annoyed, Fang frowns down at his Mistralian brother.

"Your Aura took the brunt of Ritsu's careless landing. The pain will subside."

Just then the Faunus boy turns and walks away from the small crater. Shieri only glances at the boy for a quick second, which was enough time to let his thoughts fade away before looking back down the crater.

"Ritsu, hurry up and get Kluá outta there," the Atlesian takes a step behind himself and turns his body half-way, "we're just about done here."

Looking up at his Atlesian brother, the muscular boy couldn't help but sighs to replace a casual remark he had ready in mind.

"Yeah-yeah." Ritsu replies nonchalantly.

The Titanist then grabs his Mistralian brother and throws him onto his shoulder, as the boy groans and whines in pain.

"Ah, shut up you wuss." Just then, Ritsu starts climbing up and out of the crater. "You wouldn't be acting like this if Ruby was here."

"And this wouldn't have happened if you looked before you leaped, idiot." Kluá says sharply.

"Says the one who was taking a beauty nap."

"I didn't leap, moron." Kluá retorts.

"But you didn't look either, stupid." Ritsu replies back.

At that, the Titanist drops his brother at the top of the crater and makes his way towards his other two brothers, leaving the Elementist to pick himself up.

"Ow!" the Elementist cries as he lands face first into the ground. "That hurt, you ass!"

"Get over it!" Ritsu says loudly over his shoulder.

Just then, as Kluá picked himself up off the ground, he couldn't help but think of how much of a jerk his Titan brother can be.

 _Man, if I had one lien for every time he dropped me._ Kluá thought, _I wouldn't have to deal with this crap._

At that last thought, the Elementist dusts off his battle gear and readjusts his arcane armbands so that they fit tightly on his biceps again before moving again.

* * *

Atop the hill from where Fang and Ritsu have leaped such a long distance to reach the derelict meditation circle where the Headmaster said the relics would be at, two girls stand there with observant gazes.

"You think this is it?" Yang asks her partner.

Unbeknownst to her partner's lack of knowledge, Blake regards the blonde-haired girl in silence and makes her way down the hill. Leaving the blonde girl only to follow suit a few seconds later.

As the girls make their way down the hill casually, they both notice four figures—two standing by what looks like a pedestal; one moving away from a small crater, and the last one standing by it.

Noticing the muscular build of the four figures and their girly long, shiny, jet-black hair, Yang was the first to say something.

"Hey, check it out!" Yang says, "It's the brothers!"

For reasons she doesn't understand yet, Yang sounded a little too happy when she noticed the quadruplets. Especially Ritsu.

 _God, I hope he hasn't done anything crazy yet. Or I'm in trouble._

"Wait, did you just say those four are brothers?" Blake couldn't help ask, breaking Yang out of her reverie.

The blonde girl turns her head to look at her partner as the two continue to walk.

"Yeah." Yang starts, "They're quadruplets. One from each Kingdom."

At that, Blake raises an eyebrow at Yang. "I'm gonna guess that you've already met them before?"

"Yeah, not that long ago actually…Look, I'll break'em down for you. You can easily tell who's who once you remember which Academy symbol they have. That's how I was able to remember three out of the four, at first."

"Only three?" Blake asks, "What about the last guy?"

"He's bigger than the rest, so you can't get him mixed up."

At that last part, Yang points a finger at each brother—starting from the left to the right—as their figures come closer and clearer for the blonde-haired to see.

"This one here, with the Atlas Academy symbol on his back, that's Shieri—I'm assuming he's the oldest, because of how the other three follow him around and practically do what he says…then next to him, is Fang. He's mostly quiet all the time, except when he argues with the other two brothers. Oh, and strange enough, he's the only one who looks like a Faunus."

 _That's actually really strange,_ Blake thought

Hearing that one of the quadruplets is a Faunus put Blake in a little bit of a turmoil inside her head. Only because she has never heard of any family just having one blood-related Faunus sibling. Especially in the case of that one sibling being a twin—or in this case a quadruplet. Usually, from what the Faunus girl has seen, is that the other twins' sibling(s) will also have some resemblance of Faunus heritage. But apparently not the case of these four brothers.

"Okay," Blake says confirming the information she learned about the first two brothers. "So what about the other two?"

"Oh, yeah. The big guy is Ritsu, he's obviously the strongest one, out of the four. And he's got the hots for me."

Blake snorts, "why's that?"

"Because he keeps calling me, Goldilocks a lot, or even Little Lady…and I don't see what's so little about me…"

By this point, Blake glances at Yang, but more intently at her large breasts.

 _Well those are definitely not the reason why._

"…and he comes on a little too strong, so I keep pushing him away." Yang rants, "I think he's obsessed with me…I mean I did tell him that he can't date me until he does something crazy."

"Has he already?"

"Gee, I hope not."

"So, I'm going to assume he's trying?" Blake asks, looking at her partner more intently than when she learned that one of the boys is a Faunus.

Yang shrugs, "Probably, but I won't let him win that easily."

"Well if he's trying," Blake starts, "then I think he's more determined than obsessed. I mean, you did offer him a challenge…and boy's like a challenge."

"Yeah, don't remind me." The blonde-haired girl retorts.

* * *

Shieri casually tosses the black knight chess piece to his brother, Fang.

"Take this," Shieri starts, "I have the other black knight piece."

Catching it with one hand, the Faunus boy observes the chess piece before nodding to his Atlesian brother.

With that response from his brother, Shieri turns and starts to walk in the direction of where Beacon Cliff would be.

"Come on let's—"

"Hey, Shieri!"

Interrupting him in mid-sentence, the Atlesian boy and his Faunus brother both turn in the direction of the large open-field from where the Faunus boy and the Titanist came from, only to see two all-too familiar faces. One that they don't mind seeing, and the other they do somewhat.

"Yang." Shieri pauses for a moment as he watches the blonde-haired girl and the black-haired Faunus girl walk up to him and his brother, "I see you've acquainted yourself with someone."

"Uh, yeah." Yang says, as a puzzled expression moves across her face as her and her partner both stop in front of the two brothers.

 _Gee, the way he talks is gonna take some time getting used to,_ the blonde-haired girl thought.

As Yang's thought went away, she moved on to introducing her partner.

"Say, Shieri. Fang. This is Blake." The blonde girl says, pointing a thumb at the Faunus girl who's arms are crossed over her chest. "She's my partner."

"Hi." Blake says, with a small wave of her tucked hand.

"Hey." Shieri says.

"Nice to meet you." Fang says, following suit.

By this time, the Atlesian boy has his arms folded across his chest as well, and just as his Faunus brother moves to stand next to him, with a rested hand on hilt of his dai-katana.

With a careful gaze, both Shieri and Fang look at the Faunus girl with hidden recognition, and both also notice how the girl still continues to disguise her Faunus heritage with a bow on her head.

Surprisingly, yet unbeknownst to the brothers, they had thought the same thing.

 _Why still hide who she is?_

As their similar thought went away, two more familiar voices chimed in.

"Hey, Yang!" Kluá says happily.

At sound of his voice, the two girls, and the twin assassins, both turn to see Kluá and Ritsu make their way to them.

"Kluá! What's up." The blonde girl replies.

At that, a thought pops up into Yang's mind.

"Oh yeah I forgot," Yang says with an _ah-ha_ look on her face as she turns to her partner. "Blake. This is Kluá. The other brother I forgot to mention."

Right before Blake could respond, the Titanist's voice chimes in first.

"What," Ritsu says while holding out his hands has at his side, "did you forget me too, little lady?"

"Please—" Yang rolls her eyes and puts her hands on her hips, "—you're like an incurable disease I can't get rid of."

With a feigning hurtful look, Ritsu replies back. "Well that hurts."

"But don't you worry girl," Ritsu then adds as his fake expression disappears, "I'll get you that cure. So you'll learn to live with me and not fear me."

At that, without missing a beat, Blake replies to Ritsu's comment, though what she says is aimed towards her partner.

"I told you he's more determined than obsessed."

Just then, Ritsu winks at the blonde girl.

"Hell yeah I'm determined." Ritsu then says, catching the Faunus girl and her partner's attention, as well as his three brothers. "What's the point of not doing a challenge if it's only gonna make you stronger and smarter."

For Yang, her only response to Ritsus' and her partner's statement was just a sigh in disbelief.

"Anyways…" Yang starts, hoping that she can change the topic that's at hand. "Blake and I are looking for relics. You guys find any?"

At that, the Titanist and the Elementist both turn to their assassin twins, thus diverting the attention of both girls to other brothers.

Feeling all eyes on them, Fang was the first to speak.

"Yes." Fang says, "You would be quite surprised as to what the _relics_ are."

After noticing how the Faunus boy put emphasis on the word, _relics_ , the two girls now stare at him with puzzled expressions.

"Uhh…" Was all Yang could say before Shieri spoke.

"What my brother means…is this."

Just then the Silver Knight showed the girls the black knight chess that he had taken from the pedestal.

"A pony?" Yang asks, her face full of confusion.

"No," Blake starts, "it's a chess piece."

At that, the Faunus girl moves to get a closer look at the pedestals, while leaving her partner behind with the four brothers. With whom—including Yang—all watch her intently.

With her gaze scanning across the pedestals and chess pieces, she notices two missing black chess pieces, and none from the gold chess pieces.

"It looks like you four were here before anyone else." Blake says, turning to the Atlesian boy.

"Until we showed up." Yang then adds.

Shieri nods in response.

"Might as well take the best one while the pickings are good." Kluá says, his eyes on Yang.

At that, the blonde girl makes her way to the pedestals as well…and without a second thought grabs a golden knight chess piece.

"How 'bout we get a cute little pony too, Blake?"

 _Oh boy._

Just then, Blake looks to her partner with a small smile and shrugs. "Sure," she says.

At that the two girls walk to each other.

"That wasn't too hard." Yang says.

"Well, it's not like this place is very difficult to find." Blake replies, first looking at the open-field and then the quadruplets.

At that, Shieri activated his HUD-monocle and started thinking up the waypoint back to Beacon Cliff. Once the location was on his HUD, Shieri then turned away from everyone and then started walking towards the direction of the waypoint, which was towards a much narrower end of the open-field.

Just then as the Atlesian started walking, a loud scream filled the air for few seconds. Causing the boy to stop momentarily in time to hear Ritsu and Yang speak behind him.

"Dude, some girl's in trouble." the Titanist says looking around.

"Blake" Yang says aloud, while looking around too, for the source of the voice. "did you here that?"

"Yeah, I heard." The Mistralian boy replies absent-mindedly.

Although Kluá did hear a girl scream bloody-murder, the Mistralian boy at the moment is more focused on the sky. Yet, Kluá is not the only one staring up into the sky…the two Faunus are as well.

"Man," Ritsu says sharply, "you're not even paying attention…what the hell are you looking at anyways—oh"

Just as Shieri turned to look at his brothers and the two girls, he notices that everyone, except Yang, are looking up at the sky. Instead the Silver Knight sees Yang continuing to say her partner's name, as well as wave a hand in front of the girl's face.

 _What the—_

The Atlesian boy couldn't finish his thought as s sound from a familiar voice interrupts Shieri, causing the boy to look up into the sky as.

Just then, the Atlesian boy finishes his thought, with a curse under his breath.

* * *

"Blake didn't you hear that?" Yang asks, while still waving a hand in front of her partner's face "What do you think we should do?"

Instead of getting an answer to her questions, the Faunus girl responds to her partner by looking at her, as well as making a gesture of pointing up into the sky. With which seemed to work, because the blonde-haired girl finally decided to look up into the sky and notice a very familiar person falling from the sky, giving the blonde girl a shocking facial expression.

"HEADS UP!" was all Ruby shouted as she continued to fall from the sky.

* * *

 _Now's my chance!_

Having notice that Ruby Rose is falling out of the sky, Kluá couldn't help but think of what the rewards might be if he rescues her from free falling. As such, the Elementist's thoughts revolved around the idea that the little red-hooded girl would fall in love with him and be his girlfriend for however long they can be together. Now with that mentality in mind, Kluá then bends low at his knees before leaping into air by using his semblance to make himself fly at high speeds to catch the young girl.

Noticing that the Mistralian boy took flight, both girls stare with mouths gaped open, while the boy's brothers watch with intent. Except Shieri who power's up his jetpack, in case his brother needs aerial support for when the Giant Nevermore in the sky decides to attack them.

Once the boy reached a good enough height to catch the fast falling girl, Kluá stops and grins, as well as gawks at the young girl while holding out his arms, indicating that he's ready to catch her.

 _This is it._ The Elementist thought ecstatically, _The moment of truth and destiny!_

Seeing that one of the brothers has come to her rescue, Ruby grins on the inside as she struggles against the wind to out both hands in front of her so she could wrap her arms around the Elementist when he catches her.

 **…**

…Though Ruby never got the chance to wrap herself around the boy. And the Elementist's dreams were to never come true, for everything happened in an instant.

Having been trained with heightened perception skills and eye-tracking coordination, once the red-hooded girl was a good 20 feet above the smiling quadruplet brother, everything appeared to have happened in slow-motion. For the young girl was watching in shock as the Elementist's—who hovered firmly in the air and completely poised to catch her—body and facial expression became completely distorted as a person flying and yelling in the air had suddenly blind-sided the boy…. As such, the plan to be rescued was a complete failure, and the young girl still continued to fall, with only hundreds of feet in the air left to go.

* * *

Seeing Blake and Yang stand frozen with facial expressions shocked with fear, Fang and Ritsu quickly turn to each other before glancing in front of them to see their Atlesian brother staring back.

"Dude!" Ritsu says aloud sharply.

With a quick nod to his Titan brother, Shieri looks up into the sky with a serious facial expression.

Now with his muscles tense and his legs bent at the knee, the Atlesian boy activates his Over-boost system in his jetpack before leaping into air to finish what his other brother started.

 _Should have known._ Was all the Silver Knight could think of, as he broke the sound barrier and catching the other girls' surprised looks, and then catching an even more shocked look from the young girl falling from the sky.

As Shieri wraps one arm around the small of Ruby's back and the other behind the girl's shoulder blades, the Atlesian boy angle's himself and the girl to fly straight forward, instead of up, and make a very wide turn-around to head back to where everyone waits for them.

Though as Shieri makes the turn-around, while carrying Ruby, they both disappear over the tree-line off to the side of where two of the four brothers wait, as well as Ruby's sister, and her sister's partner.

* * *

"Dammit," Kluá manages to groan. "not again."

While resting atop of a thick tree branch, the Elementist slowly regains consciousness and reopens his eyes to get a good look at his surroundings. Though, the first thing the Mistralian boy sees, is that Jaune guy who was trying to flirt with Weiss Schnee in the armory. Except when Kluá looks at the boy with slight confusion, he then notices that the boy is hanging upside down from a tree branch higher up.

"Uh. Hey, dude." Jaune says nervously. "What's up?"

* * *

"Did your sister just fall from the sky?" Blake asks while leaning forward to look past her partner, that stands to the left of her.

"I—" Was all the blonde-haired girl could muster before the sound of tree branches ruffling in front of them caught everyone's attention.

As the ruffling of the branches continued, Fang stood poise, waiting to draw out his dai-katana, while his brother Ritsu took an offensive stance—which practically looked like the Titanist was getting ready to charge at whatever was coming out of the forest.

 _Come on!_ Ritsu thought. _Let it be a Grimm. I'll tear its limbs off!_

As if his wish was granted, a creature of Grimm—a large bear type called an Ursa—came roaring out of the trees. Though just the Titanist took a step to charge the beast, his Faunus brother unsheathed his sword and held it in front of the muscular boy.

"Wait!" Fang says sharply.

Before the Titanist could protest his brother's action to prevent him from charging the Grimm creature, a sound of a girl shouting " _Yee-haw!_ " and a loud pink explosion from behind the Ursa caught the muscular boy's attention.

Just then, as quickly as the Ursa roared on its hind legs, it doubled over as an overly ecstatic young girl with ginger hair came rolling off the head of the now deceased creature.

 _What the hell!_

The two brothers and the two girls couldn't help but stare with dumbfounded expressions as the young ginger-haired girl quickly rose up on two feet.

"Aww, it's broken." The girl says, while feeling disappointed for killing the creature of Grimm.

Just then, the four hunters-in-training watch the girl run energetically back to the beast and stand on top of it, only to inspect the dead body. Though, as the girl inspects the dead body, a random exhausted boy appears out of the forest, next to the dead Grimm creature, and leans on it for support.

This boy has black long hair—like the quadruplets, yet in a long pony tail and with a magenta colored streak; and has magenta colored pupils; and wears a Mistralian cultural-mixed style, composed of a dark green, diagonally-buttoned, long-sleeved tailcoat that is red on the inside, with black and gold trimming and pink cuffs—the trimming goes down the right side of his torso and forms a black collar; and a pair of white slacks, and solid black shoes.

"Nora." The young boy manages say, "please…don't ever do that again."

Instead of getting a response from the hyperactive girl, the boy looks up and realizes that his partner had quickly disappeared from where she stood on top of the dead Grimm creature. This causes the boy to almost frantically gaze around at his surroundings for the girl. Yet little did the boy know, the young girl ran passed the two brothers and the two girls who stood by watching with their long-lasting confused looks.

As the ginger-haired girl ran pass her four spectators, she manages to stop in front of a golden chess piece…a rook.

Being completely fascinated by the golden chess piece, the ginger-haired girl makes an _Ooh_ sound, before taking the piece and balancing it on her body while she sings and makes poses.

"I'm queen of the castle. I'm queen of the castle…"

"NORA!" the magenta eyed boy shouts.

Just then, the young ginger-haired girl stopped singing and completely froze in mid pose, which composed of her standing on one leg and with both of her arms spread out, while balancing the chess piece on the top of her head. Though, realizing that it was her partner who said her name, Nora stands again on both feet, yet she mocks a salute to her partner before skipping along to her partner, with the chess piece in hand.

As the girl started to trot back to her partner, Fang couldn't help but state the obvious to everyone.

"I would assume that girl rode the Ursa, if I am not mistaken."

"I—" was all Yang could muster again before more trees started to ruffle again…though much harder than when Nora came into the clearing while riding an Ursa.

As a girl—this one being Pyrrha Nikos—came sprinting out of the forest, a giant scorpion type creature of Grimm—the Death Stalker—thrashed its way through the trees, completely knocking them over, while roaring, and violently making sweeping attacks at the red-haired warrior.

The red-haired warrior managed to dodge two sweeps of the Death Stalker's before calling out for her partner's name.

"Jaune!" the girl shouts.

* * *

While still hanging upside down, and with shocked eyes, Jaune looks out into the clearing and sees that the same Grimm creature they found earlier, in a cave, is chasing after his partner.

"Pyrrha!" Jaune says aloud.

Once the Elementist regained his bearings, he then stood up and looked in the same direction that Jaune was looking, and saw a giant Death Stalker chasing someone.

"Woah!"

At that, the Elementist leaped out of the tree and landed a couple of feet next to his brothers.

"Kluá!?" Ritsu asks feigning astonishment to see that his brother is still alive.

"Ritsu!" Kluá replies back happily, while looking at the muscular boy.

Though his attention was diverted to something else when he saw passed Ritsu that someone just landed next to Yang.

"Ruby?!" Yang asks feeling shocked to see her sister.

At that, Shieri let go of the red-hooded girl and stood to the side for the young girl to see her older sister.

"Yang!" Ruby says ecstatically.

The two sisters were about to hug one another, but they couldn't since the hyperactive girl, Nora randomly popped up between them.

"Nora!" the ginger-haired girl says aloud, while causing the sister's make surprised disapproval-like sounds.

Just as this moment between the three girls ended, Kluá, Fang, and Ritsu all moved closer to stand next near the Faunus girl, Blake.

"Hey, Kluá" Ritsu starts, getting his brother's attention, "is that Death Stalker really chasing that hot babe?"

"Uhh—" was all the Mistralian boy could manage to say before getting cut off.

Just then—not knowing if it's because of Ritsu's interest in another girl or because that annoying ginger-haired got between her and her sister—Yang finally couldn't keep her cool.

Letting her frustration spark her reserved energy assembled as her Semblance, Yang finally sets off her ability, allowing her pupils to change to color red, and letting her Aura become physical in the form of flames that engulfs her hair. By doing this, the blonde-haired girl caught everyone's attention.

"I can't take it anymore!" Yang shouts while looking around almost frantically, "Can everyone just chill for two seconds before something crazy happens again!?"

At that—unbeknownst to each other—both Fang and Shieri couldn't help but count down the two seconds.

 _One…two…_

Once everyone was quiet for two seconds, Ruby then remembered something important, which made the young girl to look up into the sky. Though she couldn't help but try to get her sister's attention to remind her that the _craziness_ is not over.

"Um…Yang." Ruby says while pointing up into the sky.

Noticing the young red-hooded girl looking up into the sky, Shieri ignored the magenta-eyed boy who arrived next to his partner looking exhausted, and couldn't help but follow her gaze.

 _Damn it,_ Shieri thought, _not another one._

* * *

Up in the sky, everyone couldn't help but notice a Giant Nevermore circling above…but more importantly, they couldn't help but see a small figure in white gripping its talon.

"How could you leave me?!" Weiss shouts down.

"I said _jump!_ " Ruby shouts back.

"Ruby," Shieri says while getting the girl's attention. "Is that your partner?"

"Yeah," the young girl replies.

Before the Silver Knight could question the young red-hooded girl, she spoke again.

"We couldn't figure out where to go, so I thought it'd be a good idea to ride a Nevermore to, you know, get a bird's eye view."

Shieri couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the girl.

 _I can't believe you said that,_ Shieri wanted to say, but instead he says:

"And the danger of being so close to a Creature of Grimm did not concern you?"

"Well it didn't see us when we grabbed on."

"But it definitely sees us now."

At that, other voices chimed in.

"She's gonna fall," Blake says aloud.

"Nah!" Ritsu replies, "She'll be fine."

"She's falling," Ren says, correcting the Titanist.

Just then both Ruby and Shieri follow everyone's gazes and look to the sky to see Ruby's partner fall. Though when the young girl in white reached a certain distance, a figure dove out of the trees, while surprising everyone, before catching the girl in his arms.

It was then, Shieri realized that what the boy did was an impulsive action because the two continued to fall while curled into each other. Yet, somewhere closer to the ground the boy had fallen faster than the girl, which resulted in the boy landing on the ground face first, and the girl landing hard and fast on the boy's back.

Everyone—except Ritsu who was laughing hard—winced once they heard the boy's back crack in multiple places.

* * *

"I believe we've witnessed a murder." Fang says aloud with wide-eyes.

Just then, the girl—Pyrrha Nikos, who was being chased by the giant Death Stalker, took a hard hit from a swing of its giant pincer, which launched the girl directly towards the group of students who are all in close-proximity of one another. Though, more accurately, right in front of Ruby and Shieri.

The Atlesian looks down at the young red-head and couldn't help but add onto his Faunus brothers' earlier comment.

"Make that two, Fang." Shieri says aloud.

Though, the only responses given to the Silver Knight's comment, was his brother—Ritsu, who only laughed even harder, while leaning on his Mistralian brother for support; and Yang saying something about everyone dying together.

Hearing her sister's comment, Ruby's heart couldn't stop racing as her adrenaline started to pick up like crazy.

The young red-hooded girl then turns to her sister. "Not if I can help it," Ruby replies.

At that, the young would-be huntress impulsively charges head on at the giant Death Stalker, while yelling a cute little battle cry.

"Ruby," Yang shouts, "wait!"

Realizing what her sister just did, Yang couldn't help but try to grab her sister, though she was already out of reach.

Hearing Yang call out to her sister, Kluá stopped focusing on trying to get his brother, Ritsu, off him and couldn't help but gawk at his crush who charging at the Death Stalker, for a one-on-one death-match.

"Ritsu," Kluá says while shoving his brother to the side, "knock it off! We gotta help Ruby!"

While sitting on the ground, Ritsu only gazed up and stared at his brother in disbelief.

"Didn't we already help her before?" Ritsu asks.

"Look," the Elementist says sharply, "you idiot!"

The muscular boy only sighs in response before looking at what's about to happen in front of him.

 _Wait, what!_

Just then, Ritsu's whole demeanor changed as he quickly rose to his feet.

"HEY!" Ritsu shouts, "I SAW IT FIRST!"

Feeling the adrenaline rush and the excitement he's always felt when he's about to fight creatures of Grimm, the muscular boy raises his hands above his head, and then thrusts them down at his side with his arms curling in; which allowed him to spark up his Semblance and Aura.

Everyone watched as Ritsu's Aura gave a physical form that outlined his body, in the same way solar flares rise off the sun, for a short period before completely fading away.

"Woah," Blake uttered, "did his Aura just take form?"

Without a response to her question, everyone watched as Ritsu charged after the Death Stalker as well.

"Aren't you going to stop your brother, Shieri?" Yang asks as she watches the Titanist run surprisingly fast after the Grimm creature and Ruby.

Shieri shrugs. "Too late now," he says without looking at the blonde-haired girl.

Just then, a beep coming from the Silver Knight's HUD monocle grabs his attention.

Shieri notices that the Aura level reader built into his HUD monocle fills his screen as the reticule hovers around Ritsu's entire body has he continues to run down the field.

Seeing the Aura level spark high, the Atlesian boy couldn't help but raise his eyebrows for a split-second before gazing at the screen with the one eye that the monocle is over.

 _That Aura level,_ Shieri thinks, _has got to be higher than everyone's here put together! Not even I have that amount of power stored in me..._

Another thought occurs to the Atlesian boy. _And What's more surprising than that…his little display did not even show a minor glimpse of his power._

With that last thought Shieri couldn't help gaze upon his muscular brother in the distance as he utters something so quiet, that only he could hear himself say it aloud.

"Is that…the power of a Titan."

Once done with his quiet outer-thought, a loud shout pulled Shieri out of his reverie.

"Ruby!" Yang shouts.

Now this time, everyone—including Pyrrha, who just rose to her feet—watch as the sister of the young red-hooded girl started sprinting after her little sister.

It was then Shieri soon realized that, as quickly as Ruby charged after the giant Death Stalker, she started to turn-tail and run from it. Except Ritsu of course, who was already halfway to meeting the young girl. Yet something in the sky catches the Silver Knight's eye.

 _Damn,_ Shieri thought.

Shieri watches as the giant Nevermore flew at a lower altitude than it did before, after Ruby. Yet this time, it stopped and gave a huge thrust of its wings towards the young red-hooded…and fired its feathers at her.

The Atlesian boy almost went wide-eyed as he saw the large feathers rain down from the sky directly in the path that Ruby, Ritsu, and Yang were running on.

Just then Shieri quickly turns to his brothers with a hardened look on his face.

"Kluá! Fang!" the Silver Knight shouts sharply.

With only a nod, both the Elementist and the Black Fang took action.

The other four remaining students gawked in astonishment as Kluá took to the skies to distract the Giant Nevermore, while Fang moved to stand ten feet in front of his Atlesian brother and unsheathe his dai-katana.

The Black Fang took his weapon by the hilt of the little hook-blade and started to swing the dai-katana in a super-fast circular motion above his head.

Once he realized what his brother was doing, Shieri swiftly drew out his dual pistols and held them up in the direction of the falling feathers.

"Ready, brother?" Fang asks, while still swinging his dai-katana.

Shieri nods. "Do it," he says coldly.

At that, Fang leaps high into the air while performing a complete spin before swinging out his dai-katana in the direction of the falling feathers. With which he could release a storm of electricity that would completely obliterate the feathers as they fell from the sky.

When his brother landed back onto the ground in a low crouching stance, the Atlesian boy followed suit by firing a barrage of powerful dust bullets before overheating his weapons.

With the barrage of dust bullets and lightning, both Kluá and Shieri managed to destroy much of the falling feathers, except for the ones that have already fallen too fast and the few that had already struck the ground here and there.

Unbeknownst to the two brothers and the other remaining students who stood by watching the two work as a team, many of the fallen feathers have struck the ground around Ritsu—with which he was completely unfazed by; while others landed in front of Yang, causing her to stop and fall back on her butt; and as this was happening, a lucky feather found its mark and struck Ruby's cloak, pinning her to the ground.

"Ruby!" Yang shouts while seeing the Death Stalker getting closer, "Get outta there!"

The blonde-haired girl could only watch helplessly as her sister continued to struggle with her pinned cloak.

"I'm trying!" Ruby shouts back in reply.

Still struggling with her cloak, it was then that the Death Stalker loomed over the young red-hooded girl.

The young girl couldn't help but close her eyes as one of her worst fears were coming to reality, when the Death Stalker thrusted its giant barbed tail down at her.

* * *

"GRR-AHH!"

Hearing Ritsu's battle cry, Ruby opened her eyes to see the most epic, yet very unreal thing she has ever seen. And not even the cartoons she's watched as a little kid could match this.

Before the young red-hooded girl's eyes, the Titanist stood with his back to her and has apparently caught the Death Stalker's tail…though not with his hands, since each one was occupied with holding both creatures' pincers at full arms-length. Rather—from a better angle to lean from—Ruby could see with wide eyes that Ritsu was holding the barbed tail…with his teeth. She also noticed that the rocky-texture skin that the boy had when they first met has appeared on his neck, face, and arms.

"Uh—Ritsu?" Ruby utters with a shocked expression. Mostly because of his surreal skin.

In response, Ritsu groans as he does another thing that completely shocks the red-hooded girl, as well as everyone else who's watching from the distance.

* * *

"Holy crap!" Kluá says aloud with a wide-eyed expression, "He's not really….!?"

Without even having to finish his response, Blake spoke up in reply.

"Oh my god he is." She says in disbelief.

* * *

Ruby watches in amazement as Ritsu's groans get louder while lifting the entire Death Stalker up high into the air, before slamming it back down hard on the ground.

With the creature completely stunned by the attack, the muscular boy the let's go of its pincers and the barbed tail while gazing up into the sky.

"Now!" he shouts, before leaping back to where Ruby was.

Just then Ruby's partner, Weiss Schnee, glides gracefully through the air before landing in front of the giant Death Stalker and pinning the tip of the barbed tail with a giant ice crystal that she made with a combination of her semblance and the dust in her rapier sword.

"You are so childish."

With her trap complete, Weiss stands up and turns to her partner while continuing to criticize her.

"And dim-witted, and hyper-active—" the heiress then makes a gesture with her hand, "—and don't get me started with your fighting style…"

"And I suppose," Weiss then adds before Ruby could reply, "I can be a bit… _difficult,_ " the white-haired girl emphasizes the word. "But if we're going to do this. We're going to have to do this together…" At this point, the young girl bends down towards her partner. "So if you quit showing off. I'll be… _nicer._ "

At that, Ritsu only snorts in response to the heiress' speech, which only got him a small glare from the girl.

"I'm not trying to show off." Ruby starts, "I want you to know, I can do this."

"You're fine." Weiss replies, before walking away from her partner and the Titanist.

Once her partner was out of hearing range, Ruby lets out a sigh of relief while quietly saying "normal knees."

"Pfft," Ritsu says while looking at the Schnee girl, "I'm glad she's not my partner…the way she talks would have knocked me out."

Not even paying attention to the Titanist's comment, Ruby realizes that her red cloak is still pinned to the ground.

"Um…Ritsu?" Ruby says.

"What's up, red-hood?" Ritsu replies while gazing down at the girl.

"Could you get rid of the feather…I'm kinda stuck."

"Oh." Ritsu starts, "Right, I forgot."

At that, Ritsu moves closer and reaches down to grab the base of the feather that sticks out of the ground. Once his hand was around the base—with complete ease—the muscular boy then pulls the feather free and tosses it aside.

With her cloak free from the ground, Ruby reaches out and grasps Ritsu's hand and allows the boy to hoist her up off the ground.

"Thanks, Ritsu." Ruby says, "If it weren't for you, I'd—"

The young red-hooded girl was cut off in mid-sentence when the voice her sister caught her attention.

"Ruby!" Yang exclaims.

Just then, the blonde-haired girl glomps her sister.

"I'm so happy you're okay!" Yang cries.

"Hey," Ritsu exclaims, "what about me?"

Yang turns her gaze to Ritsu for a moment. "You're not my sister. So, you don't count Muscles."

"Well…does saving your sister from a giant Death Stalker count towards doing something crazy for you?"

Yang makes a disapproval noise before saying, "no."

"What!?" Ritsu exclaims, "little lady...I just lifted a five-and-a-half-ton creature and slammed it back down… _just_ to save your sister."

"Yeah…but Ruby's partner is the one who trapped it. So, what you did doesn't count."

At that, the muscular boy throws his hands up in the air for a second, as the blonde-haired girl releases her sister.

"You're really gonna make me run for my money aren't you, princess?"

"Yup!" Yang replies happily. "and stop calling me nicknames, we're not even dating."

"Might as well be." Ruby murmurs quietly.

Though, what the red-hooded girl said wasn't silent enough, since her older sister scowled her for a short moment.

Just then, the sound of a giant creature roaring makes the three students look up at the giant Nevermore.

"Um, guys!" Jaune shouts aloud to Ritsu, Ruby, Weiss, and Yang while pointing to the sky. "That thing is circling back!"

"Come on! We gotta go!" Kluá shouts to the four as he quickly and swiftly lands next to the blonde-haired boy.

"Okay!" Ritsu shouts in reply. "So god damn bossy," he then utters quietly.

At that, the muscular boy and the Schnee heiress make their way back to the main group, with Yang at tow. Ruby then lags behind only for a brief moment when her curiosity got the best of her, causing the young girl to peek around the cluster of ice crystals to see what happened to the Death Stalker.

In full view, Ruby could see that the Death Stalker was not stunned anymore and was starting the struggle to free its tail…and with each tug, the ice crystals began to crack.

 _Uh-oh._ Was all that came to the young red-hooded girl's mind before turning back around and darting after her sister and friends.

* * *

"Umm…guys?" Jaune exclaims while pointing up into the sky. "That thing is circling back…What're we gonna do?"

In response to wimpy boy's question, Ritsu pounds his fists together.

"I'd say, we fight 'til it dies." The muscular boy says with a wryly grin.

At that, Kluá gawks at his brother in disbelief before speaking up sarcastically.

"Yeah, and let's everyone who hasn't fought a Nevermore before, die right in front of us. All because you wanna go head on with this thing."

Before Ritsu could mock a reply, another voice chimes into the conversation.

"Enough!" Shieri says sharply.

The Atlesian's terse voice was enough to suddenly grab everyone's attention, causing them to all stare in disbelief.

"We need to leave now." The Silver Knight says aloud, "Remember, we only came here for the _relics._ "

By gazing in astonishment at the young Atlesian boy, the young red-hooded girl found a chance for an opportunity to speak up without missing a beat.

"He's right," Ruby says aloud. By this point, the young girl has everyone's attention, including the Atlesian boy that she has begun to admire.

Seemingly, it looks as though the Silver Knight is watching her with close intent…which is exactly what she expected to happen.

"There's no point in fighting these things."

"Run and live." Jaune chimes in, "That is an idea I can get behind."

At that, the blonde-haired boy and the red-hooded girl both move to grab their own _relics._

"Ruby" Yang says aloud, "get the last pony!"

"Ooh!" Nora, "Jaune, grab the castle! We can rule like kings and queens!"

Just then, everyone couldn't help but give Nora a weird look as she starts to let out an evil laugh.

* * *

As everyone was still running to keep a good distance away from the Giant Nevermore in the sky, Kluá looked back over his shoulder one more time to see how far back his muscular brother was. Which, as it turns out, his brother was some little ways behind.

"YOU'RE AN IDIOT, RITSU!" Kluá shouts over his shoulder, to his brother.

"WHY DON'T YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!" Ritsu shouts back.

 _God._ Ritsu thought, _Isn't there anyone else he can blame!_ _It's not my fault we ran pass a Boarbatusk!_

After that last thought, the muscular boy had a quick flashback of that moment with the Giant Boartusk…which ended with the large group of students running across the Creature of Grimm's path and with Ritsu back-handing it to the side while shouting insults.

 _This wouldn't be happening if it wasn't there in the first place._

At that last thought, Ritsu watches his brother turn his head to look over his shoulder again.

"I WILL!" the Elementist shouts.

Just then Kluá skids to a stop as his brother passes by.

It was then that it became Ritsu's turn to look over his shoulder to see what his brother was going to do with the Giant Boarbatusk that is currently chasing them.

As Kluá turns to face the giant Grimm creature, the young boy closes his eyes before taking a deep breath, with which he exhales slowly. When the Elementist opens his eyes, he sees the giant creature charging straight for him before it leaped into the air and started rolling at a speed that could match a bullet train.

With only seconds to think, the young Elementist puts his hands on his hips and starts to kick the tip of his shoe into the ground three times. While doing this, the young boy summons his aura and activates his semblance.

 _Come on now._ Kluá thought as the creature started to close in. _One…two…_

On two, the Boarbatusk became as close as ten feet.

 _Three…_

At the end of his counting, Kluá blows at the air in front of him, creating a gale force wind that became strong enough halt the beast in its tracks, while spinning only inches from himself.

 _Gotcha!_ The young boy thought ecstatically.

Just then, Kluá uses his semblance to control the air around the creature to push it back a good ten feet before kicking his foot into the ground and out at the creature. By kicking the ground, the young boy created a ripple through the ground and a small tremor in the area before a huge chunk of the ground came loose; and with his kick, the huge piece of dirt and grass flew up into the air.

Once he had the piece of Remnant hovering in the air, Kluá reaches out his hands—one at the creature, and the other at the dirt— and then uses his semblance to control the wind to lift the Boarbatusk up into the air, just under the floating chunk of dirt.

Finally realizing what's going on, the Boarbatusk suddenly stopped its roll attack and only started to frantically move about in the air while squealing in fear.

"Sorry!" Kluá says loudly. "But you have to die!"

At that, the Elementist slams the Boarbatusk into the shallow hole he created, that was surprisingly big enough for it, causing the creature to be completely stunned for a short time. Now, while the creature remained stunned, the young boy uses this chance to slam down the hovering piece of Remnant with a hundred times more force than gravity itself. Thus completely killing the giant creature in its shallow grave.

"Damn," Kluá breathes a sigh of relief, "that fat pig was pretty heavy."

Just then Kluá looks up into the sky in the direction of his brothers, and the other students, and sees the Nevermore is still chasing them.

 _Ah, crap!_

Just then Kluá dives into the air and flies after his brothers and rest of the students that were with him. And with a quick glance at the shallow grave he made for the dead Boarbatusk, Kluá notices that the big pile of dirt is slowly shrinking. Since due to the fact that the bodies of Grimm slowly fade over time.

 _Eh._ Kluá thought, _at least it got to rest in peace._

* * *

"Aw crap!" Jaune says aloud.

As he said that, everyone came to a halt at the edge of the tree line and in front of a large ancient stone structure that looks like a settlement built with surrounding pillars and bridges that connect it between the giant cliff face ahead and the current one they are getting close to.

With his HUD, Shieri thinks to his device to scan the area around him and the other students. Although nothing unusual alerts the young boy, except the waypoint icon that points up into the sky. Thus, meaning that the giant Nevermore is still in the sky above them. As the young boy moves his gaze from left to right like an Atlesian Knight drone, a tremble occurs below his feet, causing him to look down at the ground, though he then realizes that the trembling was too feint for it to be coming from underground.

As quickly as he turned a whole one-eighty degree: Shieri, his brothers, and the other students saw the giant Deathstalker from earlier come charging through the trees, clearing its own path towards them.

"AW MAN," Jaune shouts. "RUN!"

"Nora," Ren says aloud to his partner, "distract it!"

At that, all the students make their way towards the ancient structure to keep a good distance away from the Deathstalker. Though in the same instance that the students started to run, the giant Nevermore—which now hovers above the structure that's between the cliffs—now rains a small barrage of feathers at them, but sadly all had miss.

Now noticing a break in the creature's attack, Nora vaults over a giant feather before pulling out her weapon, a grenade launcher, and firing flak rounds up into the sky. The flak rounds managed to scare the crow-like creature into veering off out of site of the bombardment. With which mainly put it out of site for everyone, momentarily.

Yet, with being so focused on the counter-attack, the young ginger-haired girl completely forgot about the Deathstalker that soon found its way to her, and closing the distance between the two, fast.

Looking like a deer caught in headlights, Nora only watched as the Deathstalker was about to start an attack, until it was struck with a surprise attack by Blake and Ren who formed an "X" formation when striking the creature with their bladed weapons.

As soon as the Deathstalker was stunned, Kluá surprised the ginger-haired girl by flying pass the Grimm creature and landing closely in front of her. Once he landed, the Mistralian boy wrapped both arms around the young girl—which took her by surprise—and with his semblance, launched the two into the air, towards the beginning of the bridge.

* * *

Once at the entrance of the bridge, both Shieri and Pyrrha both stop and turn back to face the direction of the forest, with weapons ready at their sides, and waiting for the other half of the group to cross.

As the two students stood guard, Kluá and Nora both landed in front of them before taking off across the bridge.

Though, before he could make his way across, Shieri plants a hand on his brother's shoulder.

"You took care of the Boarbatusk?" the Silver Knight asks.

A grin splays across the Elementist's face. "Of course." he says, "I also made sure it had a proper burial."

Shieri snorts. "How respectful of you."

At that, the Atlesian boy removes his hand from his brother's shoulder, and pulls out his second pistol once again.

"Now go cover the other end." Shieri says, nodding his head in the direction behind him.

Kluá nods his head in response; though before he was about to take off another familiar hand is planted on his shoulder. This time the young boy turns to his right and sees his childhood friend once again.

"Thank you, Kluá. I'm glad you're safe." Pyrrha says most earnestly.

Just then, the Elementist's face starts to blush. "Hey, anytime best friend." Kluá replies.

In the instant that the two locked eyes, Shieri clears his throat, causing the two friends to break out of their reverie and go back to what they were supposed to do, before their little moment.

Now as his brother was making his way across the bridge, Shieri lifted his weapons and started to fire at the Deathstalker once it came into view. Though as him and Pyrrha were shooting the Grimm creature, they had to be careful with their aim since Blake and Ren were still running in front of the thing.

Once Blake and Ren made it onto the bridge, the Deathstalker halted in its tracks and only roared a screech.

Seeing that the Grimm creature is too big for the bridge to move across, both Pyrrha and Shieri stopped firing, and then tuned to run in the direction of the other students.

As the distance started to close between the two groups of students, the sound of a loud screech grabs Shieri's attention, which causes the young boy to look to his left.

Out in the distance—and closing fast—the giant Nevermore from earlier screeches once more.

 _Damn that things' persistent._

As if to prove his point, the Nevermore crashes through the entire center of the bridge, causing debris and the students to fly in all directions.

* * *

"HOLY—" Was all the Titanist could let out before something snatched him out of the sky as he was falling with limbs flailing about.

Looking up, Ritsu relaxes as he realizes that his brother, Kluá, had grabbed his hand. Though from the looks of it, the Elementist is having a tough time holding his brother in mid-air.

"God you're a heavy Titan!" Kluá groans.

"If you can't carry me!" Ritsu shouts while looking up at his brother. "Then you're the _weakest_ Titan I've ever met!"

"Whatever!"

At that, Kluá carries his brother over to the central part of the ancient structure that resembles a tower-like design with pillars that stand in a circle to hold the ceiling up; and then lands in the center. From there the young Mistralian drops his brother—who lands firmly on his feet, while he slowly descends and lands gracefully. Upon landing, the Mistralian boy then arches his back to stretch out his muscles and to relieve himself the pain he started to develop by carrying his brother.

"You know." Kluá starts, "I'm from Mistral…or did that go in one ear and out the other?"

"No." Ritsu replies, "I just know that you're wrong, stupid."

"My god, Ritsu. I swear—"

"ENOUGH!" a familiar voice shouts.

Just then Shieri hovers high in the air in front of his infuriating brothers, with a look of annoyance and anger. And with his jetpack activated, the Silver Knight looks like a vengeful angel with his wings protruding from the pack.

"Now help the others!" the Silver Knight shouts.

At that, the two brothers sigh in sync—both showing a sign of frustration before taking off to help the other students.

As Ritsu and Kluá both dispersed, Fang—who had leaped up from the side of the tower-like structure, lands down in front of his Atlesian brother.

"Shieri!" Fang shouts, as he turns around to face up at his brother. "You must keep the Nevermore distracted, for I cannot fly!"

"Why not use your Semblance!?" Shieri replies.

"The debris falls too quickly!"

Looking at his immediate surroundings for a moment, Shieri quickly realizes the truth in his brother's words. For the large chunks of the bridge have already fallen to the abyss of the narrow valley the ancient structure is built over.

"Ok! I'll distract it!" Shieri shouts. "But you gotta help those on this side!"

"As well as the others!?"

"No! Ritsu and Kluá will give them support!"

At that last sentence, Fang did not continue the conversation any further because the sound of a loud screech caught their attention.

In the instance that the giant Nevermore screeched, Shieri left his Faunus brother at supersonic speed to meet the creature in mere seconds.

As his brother sped off into the sky, Fang turns his body in the direction of the Emerald Forest just in time to see Jaune and Nora do something completely risky…and outright ridiculous, according to the Faunus boy.

"I don't think these students realize how escalated this danger has just become." The Faunus boy says aloud to himself.

Just then, Nora slams down her hammer on the broken bridge, sending a large chunk of it into the air and having it tilt in a way that would send Jaune flying towards the Deathstalker.

Fang sighs. "I have spoken too soon."

* * *

While being chased by the Nevermore, Shieri couldn't help but groan in disbelief over the fact that the headmaster of Beacon Academy made a request for him and his brothers to fight on a similar level to the other students. Thus, only making it difficult for him to not get things done as soon as possible, as per the young Atlesian boy is used to, when he undergoes a mission.

 _Ozpin, this is a terrible plan!_ The Silver Knight thinks to himself. _Fighting mediocrely is not, in any way, part of my skill set. Especially when I take on high-risk missions such as this._

As the young Atlesian finishes his thought, his HUD makes a notification beep in his ear, with which he quickly realizes that it's the anomaly detector only to see a gaping mouth closing in on him fast. Now, even at the speed that the two are going, the Atlesian boy could smell the lingering bad breath of the giant creature; which—even under his mask—almost made the boy gag. Though, just before the Nevermore could close its beak, Shieri side-boosts away from the creature, causing it to bite down on nothing but air.

Seeing how he's not in any danger anymore, Shieri flaps his wings forward once to come to a complete stop, only to hover in mid-air and watch the Grimm creature speed past him.

Shieri snorts, "That Grimm is too big for its own good."

At that, Shieri watches the Nevermore try to make its way below and around the ancient stone structure since it can't turn as easily as he can, though it continues to destroy even more of the structures that surround the center building. Also in the same instant, the young Atlesian boy's HUD monocle notifies him of another anomaly; one that appears to be closing in on the Nevermore from farther below.

Using his mind to manipulate the HUD monocle some more, Shieri was able to set up a flight path, as well as make the screen zoom-in; in time to watch Yang's partner, Blake, to fly over the Nevermore.

* * *

As she lands gracefully on top of the giant crow-like creature of Grimm, Blake swiftly removes her weapon from its magnetic sheath and begins to swing side-to-side rapidly across and down the creature's back.

In only a matter of seconds, the young Faunus girl made it to the tip of the Nevermore's tail, where she then decides to take a leap of faith.

It was then, in that instant Shieri quickly realizes that Blake is making eye contact with him from the distance as she jumps off the back of the creature of Grimm.

Shieri chuckles to himself, feeling slightly amused the by current situation.

"The irony of this situation."

At that, Shieri uses his jetpack to beeline towards the falling Faunus girl.

Once he got close enough to the girl, the young Atlesian reaches out to grasp firmly the Faunus girl's hand. Who then, he flies back to the central structure where Ruby, her partner, and her sister were.

"It's tougher than it looks!" Blake says loudly over the sound of the rushing wind.

 _You have yet to see the worse,_ Shieri wanted to say. But instead he says…

"Then we need to attack with a combined strike!"

At that, Shieri lets go of Blake's hand, letting her touch down on top of the roof wall of the ancient structure where, Ruby, Yang, Weiss, and Fang stand.

As the group stand and watch the Nevermore make a giant U-Turn, Yang turns to Shieri with a questionable look on her face.

"Hey!" she says aloud, "Let's hit it with everything we got!"

Without a reply, the Silver Knight and the Black Fang both ready their weapons the same way as they did when the Nevermore first attacked. Yet, this time, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang follow suit.

* * *

Using his HUD monocle, Shieri aims his weapons a keen precision while watching the giant crow-like Grimm creature finish its turn through the air.

Once it started to beeline towards the students, the Nevermore makes another loud shriek before increasing its speed.

Shieri—who's been waiting patiently for the giant bird to get into accurate range for his pistols—slowly squeezes the triggers in both of his hand-cannon pistols causing the hammers behind the chambers to come back in full extension.

 _3…2…_ Shieri thinks to himself, _…1_

On his final countdown, the Nevermore lets out another deep screech.

"Open fire!" Shieri shouts.

The Atlesian fires both pistols simultaneously, before switching to an A-B pattern to match the fire rate of Yang's hard jabs that allow her to fire combustions of dust-like fireballs. This is all along with Blake's small combat pistols; Weiss's Dust projectiles; Ruby's high-impact sniper rounds; and Fang's lighting projectiles.

Although, unbeknownst to the four girls, the two assassin brothers' attacks appear to lack the amount of power that they had used when the two fought each other…to the death.


End file.
